Changed
by Taelr
Summary: Tyler Williamson is a relatively normal girl.. until she's kidnapped and her world is turned upside down. Now she belongs to Billy Darley, a ruthless, heartless man who wants her only for her body. However, behind the sarcasm and the swearing and the sex, something deeper is growing between them. But can love survive in their end of the sewer? And if it can't, can they?
1. The Purchase

They pushed her into a room. A room full of other girls. Most of them looked to be about her age, but all of them were between fourteen and eighteen, she was sure. She fell to the ground where they pushed her, down on her knees in the middle of the room. Most of the other girls were in the shadows, pressing themselves into corners or against the walls in what seemed to be a desperate attempt to hide.

But she was done caring. She had been hit and slapped and pushed around, even thrown into a shelf at the gas station, and she was too tired and in too much pain to really care about anything else anymore. She curled her knees beneath her and doubled over, wondering when or if the pain in her lower abdomen would ever subside. She glanced at the girls around her, but it quickly became apparent that none of them were in a friendly, compassionate mood. They all seemed to hope that she would stay in the middle of the room and far from them.

They waited. For what seemed like hours. She cursed herself for having forgotten to put on her watch that morning, wondering just how long it had been since her kidnapping. Did the cops know? Were they looking for her? Had they looked at the surveillance camera in the gas station? Had the camera even been in working condition? And if the authorities had found out about the murders and the kidnapping, had they notified her parents yet? Did they know that their little girl, their only daughter, had been taken from them?

She knew what this was; she knew exactly why she and the other girls were here. But when would they leave or be moved? Would they be taken away in groups or one at a time? Part of her hoped that at least one other girl would be taken with her if she was moved, but another part of her found no solace or comfort in the other girls' presence there with her.

She sighed and dropped her head to look down at her arms. It was dim in the room, too dark to see whether there were bruises. It sure felt like there were bruises. But she was lost from her pondering when the only door into the room burst open. All of the girls around her seemed to be pressing themselves into corners and shrinking back into the shadows as much as they could, and they all looked down. Most of them tilted their heads so that their hair would cover their faces.

She was the only one who looked up and watched the men that filed in. There were three of them. Two of them she recognized as having been part of the group who came to the gas station, and the other one had a face she'd never seen before.

The two men she had seen before spread their arms as if showing off the contents of the room. "Take your pick," one of them said.

The unfamiliar man let his eyes sweep across the room, but his gaze came to rest on her. He looked into her eyes and his expression changed; she was sure he was trying to intimidate her. In truth, she was scared as hell. But she didn't let him see that. She glared right back at him, silently declaring that she would not cower before him. He stared at her for a few moments more, licking his lips. "That one," he said, jerking his chin her way.

One of the men who had grabbed her earlier in the gas station moved to her side and grasped her upper arm in an iron-hard grip. He yanked her to her feet and pushed her over to the unfamiliar man who had chosen her. Her arm hurt where the man had grabbed it, but she held her head high and walked on her own instead of letting him drag her along with him. The unfamiliar man slapped a wad of cash into one of the familiar men's hands and grabbed her shoulder. He looked her up and down, nodded, and grinned. She stared right back, silent but strong.

He shoved her along in front of him, and they left the building. She was forced into a car and pushed into the back seat. The man who she realized now owned her slid into the driver's seat and locked the doors. Then he hit the gas and they went pealing out of the drive. She would have tried to unlock the door and throw herself out of it, but she was too afraid of getting thrown about inside the car, so she took two broken seatbelts from either side of her and tied them together to hold her in her seat. Then she reached out, grabbing what she could to brace herself as they careened around corners and came to a screeching halt.

The insane driving continued for another hour, which she knew by the clock on the stereo system. Then the man driving slammed the brakes and they skidded to a stop in front of yet another large building. By now it was around midnight, and it was too dark for her to see anything but the massive building looming over them as he pushed her up the steps and through the large front door. He pushed her up several flights of stairs, down multiple hallways, and through plenty of doors before they came to a stop in front of one door that seemed utterly average and was nothing different than the other doors they'd come through so far.

The man knocked, and there was a muffled, "Come in," yelled from somewhere inside. Her owner turned the knob and pushed her through the door, closing it behind him.

It was dimly lit in the room, but lighter than the room she had been in with the other girls. She noticed the figure of a man leaning against the wall opposite the door she'd just come through, but he was covered by the shadows and she couldn't see his face or any of his features. There was a fan built high into the wall behind him, and light from street lamps managed to leak in through the slow-turning wings on it. But the light fell on her and not on the new mystery man. She was standing in the middle of the room and in the shafts of light that made it past the fan. She knew that the shadow of a man could clearly see her features, while she could see none of his.

She tensed when he said, "The fuck took you so long?"

She knew he wasn't talking to her, and she waited for the man behind her to speak. "Traffic," was all he said.

"Yeah," the man in the shadows hissed. "You sure you didn't stop on the side of the road to test her out before you got here?"

"I-I swear," the man behind her said haltingly. He sounded genuinely terrified of the man in the shadows.

The man only grunted in response. Then he stepped closer to her, though he was still enveloped in darkness and his face wasn't close enough for her to see clearly. "Why'd you pick this one?" he asked.

The man who had bought her guffawed. "She's beautiful."

"Obviously, you fucking numbskull," the man in the darkness growled. "They only have good-looking ones. There's another reason you chose this one."

"She has fire in her," the man behind her said, "She's defiant and held her head high, and you know how the rest of them look; they hide and cower in the shadows. This one was sitting in the middle of the room, right where I could see her. She's a fighter."

She hated being talked about like this when she was standing right there with them, as if she was a slave. But then she realized that she was a slave, and that she had just been bought. Her mouth went dry, but she licked her lips, calling the liquid back to her tongue.

She kept her head held high and stared straight at the man in the shadows, even when he took another step forward. He was close enough for her to make out the basics of his facial features, but the light was behind him and his face was masked in shadows still. She tensed, but didn't flinch away, when he lifted a hand and gripped her chin. He leaned back, allowing the light to fall on her face as he tightened his grip and tilted her head back and from one side to the other, getting a good look at her features. Unbidden, words rolled off her tongue at the way she knew he was looking at her. "Like what you see?" she asked hotly.

He seemed surprised that she had spoken, and with such vigor. "Yeah, I do," he said, leaning closer to her. "He was right, sweetheart; you are a fighter."

He released her chin and brushed her cheek with the back of his fingers, and his smile glinted at her through the dark when she lifted her chin in response to his touch. "I like this one," he said, and though his eyes never left her face, she knew he was talking to the man behind her. Then he moved, walking in a slow circle around her. She knew he was looking her up and down, and even though she knew he was deciding whether he wanted her, she stood straight and didn't pretend to have anything physically wrong with her.

He stared, and she stared right back. He glared, and she glared right back. He frowned, but her expression remained set in a defiant grimace. She knew what he was trying to do; he was trying to intimidate her and to make her fear him. Perhaps even trying to make her hate him. But she refused to give him that satisfaction. He smiled again, reaching out and grabbing her arm in the same place the other men had grabbed her earlier. She gritted her teeth when he turned her around and walked her past the man who had bought her. He tossed a wad of cash to her previous owner as they passed by and then steered her down the hallway. The few dim lights that they passed flickered and threatened to go out and leave them in complete darkness. He pushed her up another flight of stairs and then down a long hall, and then they stopped in front of another door, this one looking nicer and larger than the one that led to the room where she had just been purchased once more.

She tensed when the man leaned down and she felt his hot breath on her ear. "Open it," he said.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, opening them as she reached out to turn the knob and pushed the door open. But none of the things she had prepared herself for were waiting when he pushed her inside and closed the door behind them, locking it. Then he released her arm and stepped into the middle of the room in front of her. "Take a good look," he said, spreading his arms and proudly showing off the place, "at your new home."

And she did. She looked around, taking in every detail. The carpet, walls, and ceiling were all dark red, as were the thick curtains that hid the only window in the place from view. A dresser was in the corner opposite her and to her right, and a closet door stood open beside it. The window was in the wall between the dresser and a queen-size bed in the corner opposite her and to her left. There was a pile of sheets and blankets that lay on top of the mattress, having obviously never been made. There was a desk against the wall to her left, and to her right, a door stood open. A quick glance revealed a sink beyond the door, and she assumed that it was a bathroom. The carpet was scattered with small bits of paper, wrappers, and cigarette butts. An old ceiling fan turned lazily above his head, rocking back and forth as it did.

"Mm, charming," she said sarcastically when she had finished looking.

Her gaze ran along the floor until she found his lace-up boots, and she let her eyes rise from there. He was wearing dark blue jeans, a darker shirt with obscenities printed on it, and a leather jacket. A silver belt buckle was half-visible beneath the hem of his shirt. He had black curls of flame tattooed from somewhere on his chest or shoulder beneath his shirt. The flames curled up both sides of his neck and behind his ears. She could finally see his face. He'd shaved his head, so she couldn't tell what color his hair was aside from that which grew on his face. He had a brunette mustache and a beard, though it was only scruff and could hardly be called a goatee. Dark eyebrows frowned at her. He had a nice, normal-sized nose, and several scars on his face and neck. And he had stunning green eyes. She hated herself for liking his eyes, but the different colors and shades that people's eyes could be had always fascinated her, and his were beautiful. Then she realized that he'd seen her looking him over.

"Like what you see?" he mocked her earlier question.

She laughed, and it was obvious by her expression that the answer to his question was no.

He stepped closer to her and said, "Because I do."

"_Oh_," she said, leaning away from him, "You're attracted to yourself. What a stunning quality in a man."

He closed the space between them, and she took an involuntary step back. Her back hit the door and she knew that she had no escape. He stepped closer again, so close that if he moved forward he'd be stepping on her toes. Then he leaned in until their faces were inches apart, his breath hot on her face. "I don't believe we've been introduced," he said.

"We haven't," she returned without any fear or tremor in her voice at all.

"I'm Billy. Billy Darley. And you are?"

"Tyler," she said quietly but firmly.

"Your last name?" he asked.

She hated to tell him, but her family lived so far away that she was sure they were safe. And the look in his eyes said that if she didn't tell him, she would have more than her family's safety to be worried about. "Williams," she said just as quietly, but just as steadily, as before.

"What's your middle name?"

"Suzanne," she breathed; he was leaning closer as they spoke.

"Tyler Suzanne Williams," he purred. "A beautiful name for a beautiful girl. How old are you, sweetheart?"

"Fifteen," she said as calmly as if they had been discussing the time or the weather.

"Mm," he sounded like he was about to sink his teeth into an especially delicious meal. "So young. I'm twenty-two."

She said nothing.

"We're going to have a lot of fun, you and me," he said.

"Oh, I'm sure," she said, her gaze never leaving his.

He stared at her for a few moments and then he quirked an eyebrow and said, "Virgin."

"Maybe," she said.

He laughed cruelly. "Well, not after tonight, you won't be. And there'll be no 'maybe' about it."

She took a deep breath. "Go to hell," she said through clenched teeth.

"Oh, I know I'm going down there, sweetheart," he said. Then his eyes shone maliciously and he said, "And I intend to take you with me."

She continued to stare dauntlessly into his eyes. "Fuck you."

"Ooh, she knows how to swear," he said, sounding pleased. "I can't wait to hear the things that come out of your mouth in a little while when I have my way with you."

She exhaled loudly through her nose, a half-snort intended to sound like an unimpressed laugh.

"You aren't afraid," he said. It wasn't a question.

She gave a half-shrug and tilted her head to the side as she did.

"You should be," he said suddenly, and his hands were on her shoulders and he had her pressed against the door. He was pressing with more than his hands, as his body was against hers now.

Before he could lean his head in any closer, she growled, "Maybe I should be afraid, but I'm not."

He laughed. "You will be."

He had her pinned against the door with his body, and he let go with his hands to shrug out of his leather jacket. Then he pulled off his shirt, grinding his hips against hers as he did.

Her eyes trailed momentarily down his chest and stomach, taking in his muscular torso for a moment and then returning to his face. The curls of flame on his neck spread across his collar bone and down both of his shoulders, spanning his entire arms all of the way to his wrists. Her breath left her lungs in surprise when he pulled back suddenly, taking her with him so that she had her back to the corner where the bed was. Then he pushed her slowly backwards towards it. He still had ahold of her shoulders, and she kept expecting the mattress to hit the back of her knees. But just before it did Billy turned them around so that his back was to the bed and he sat down on the edge of it in the same instant. He jerked her towards him and she was surprised and thrown off balance, and in her moment of confusion he pulled her onto his lap so that she was straddling his waist.

Now she was truly afraid. She expected him to tear off her clothes at any moment.

But he only laughed. He reached up, trailing a finger down the side of her face as he spoke. "Fucking beautiful as you are, and as much as I'd love to fuck you now," he said, "You're my long term pet, sweetheart. I can't have you getting pregnant. That, and I'm tired tonight. But I'll be sure and save some energy for tomorrow."

He watched her reaction with disinterest, though he seemed pleased by her fearful expression. "You're mine now," he said after a moment of watching her.

He trailed his fingers from her hairline to her chin, cupping her cheek with his hand. His other hand slithered up behind her head to bring her in and keep her from pulling away, and he kissed her, hard. As much as she hated him, it was the kind of kiss that made her want more. But she turned her head and wiped her lips as soon as he would allow her to pull away. His kiss tasted like a mixture of mint and cigarettes. The mint she didn't mind at all, but the cigarette taste and smell made her want to gag.

"I'll bring back some stuff tomorrow," he said. "Besides, you smell like the fucking trafficking place. You'll need to shower and clean up before I fuck you." He smiled and added, "But after tomorrow, you'll be mine. All mine. And I'll have you every night and I won't need anyone else to please me." He stroked her hair, causing shivers to run down her spine.

She took a shaky breath, wishing the fear that had tightened around her heart would loosen its grip.

He laughed at her reaction to his words and pushed her off of his lap and onto her feet. Once he had her there, he said, "You won't be too comfortable sleeping in those clothes. Why not slip out of them?"

Tyler stood perfectly still. She wasn't getting naked for him until she absolutely had to. And not until her only other option was losing her life.

He smirked at her defiance and stood up quickly, his chest suddenly pressing against hers. But he slipped past her and walked to the closet, where he looked around for a moment before returning with something in his hands. He threw it at her and she caught it and looked down. She was holding a pair of short running shorts.

Sighing, she started to walk towards the bathroom, intending to change there. But Billy's arm was suddenly in front of her, barring her way. "There's no need to be modest," he said, grinning at her deviously, "I'll see it all later."

She gave him a defiant look, but walked over to the wall near the bed and kicked off her shoes. She unbuttoned and unzipped her jeans, stepped out of them, and pulled on the shorts. They fit her well, and she sighed, feeling self-conscious standing there with Billy looking at her.

He took off his own shoes and pants and shook out a blanket that was lying on the mattress. He threw the rest of sheets and blankets on the floor at the end of the bed and slid into bed. Then he turned and looked at her. He patted the mattress beside him. He had turned off the only light in the room before he got into bed, and the only thing keeping it dimly lit now was the light that came through the crack between the curtains on the window.

Tyler would have loved to sleep on the floor in the corner farthest from him, but the look on his face told her that it would be unwise to walk away from him now. So she sighed and slid into bed beside him.

"Good girl," he crooned from beside her.

She ignored him and turned onto her side so that she was facing away from him. She tensed and started in surprise when his arm hooked around her and he pulled her closer until he was pressed against her from behind.

She hoped and prayed that he wouldn't notice her trembling, but he did.

"Relax," he whispered, his breath hot against her ear, "The fun doesn't start until tomorrow night."

She said nothing and tried to picture herself back in her own bed at her parents' house. It was strangely hard to remember exactly what everything in her room had looked like when she'd left it. She glanced at the clock that sat on the desk. Great, she was just getting to sleep at three in the morning. She wondered absently what time Billy would wake up in the morning. And would he wake her as soon as he had? A shiver ran the length of her spine as Billy buried his face in her hair and the tip of his nose touched the back of her neck.

She slid away from him a bit and started to sit up. But his arm was locked around her waist, and he wouldn't let her get up. "God," she hissed without turning to look at him, "I'm not going to try and escape or sleep on the floor or something. You're the one who needs to relax."

"What are you doing?" was his only response, and he growled it through his teeth.

Now she turned and looked at him, her face the picture of annoyance. Then her expression changed to one of mock pleading and she said irritably, "May I sit up and put my hair in a bun? I always sleep with it up because if it's down I get sweaty. You don't want that, do you?"

He said nothing, but he loosened his grip on her waist and allowed her to sit up. As she did, his hand moved to her thigh. She took a deep breath, resisting the urge to swat his hand away or move it to her lower thigh and closer to her knee. But she managed to ignore him for a moment and she used one of the hairbands that she always had on her wrist to tie her hair in a loose bun on top of her head. Prolonging the moment when she would have to lie back down against him, she pulled her knees up to her chest and scratched her leg. When she pulled up her knees Billy let his hand slide off of her leg, and she felt a wave of relief when he did. But after another moment she knew that she needed to lie down or he would get angry.

So she did. But she was hardly graceful, letting herself fall back onto the mattress rather unceremoniously. She stretched out her legs and lay there on her back, trying to savor the precious few seconds she had before Billy reached out to pull her in or touch her again. But he didn't.

She had been staring at the ceiling, but she turned her head to look at him. He was lying on his side, watching her. She dropped her gaze and looked at the ceiling again; she wasn't in the mood to have a staring contest with him at the moment. Part of her was afraid that she might not be able to sleep, and that worried her because she knew how tired she'd be the next day. But another part of her was afraid of falling asleep, lest Billy decide to do something unexpected while she wasn't keeping an eye on him. She was just drifting off when he spoke, and she started to wake up again.

"Goodnight, sweetheart," he purred, sounding perfectly awake.

She didn't wake up all of the way. Half asleep, she muttered, "Fuck you," and turned onto her side so she wasn't facing him.

She fell back asleep then, and she didn't see the amused smile that twisted the corners of his lips in response to what she said.

**Hey there! This is my first Death Sentence story, so if you have any suggestions or ideas to help me keep Billy in character, please let me know. I'd love to hear what you thought of this chapter, and if you have any corrections or comments those are always welcome. Thank you so much for reading! ~Taelr**


	2. The First Time

The next morning Tyler was the first to wake. She blinked in confusion at her surroundings, wondering for a few strange seconds where she was and why she wasn't in her room in her dad's apartment. Then everything came back to her in a rush and she realized that Billy had pulled her against him again at some point during the night, and his arm was hooked around her waist again.

She yawned and rubbed her eyes, tensing when Billy moved in his sleep and pressed his face against the back of her neck. She didn't even shiver or tremble in response to his being so dangerously close; she knew that the real fear should and would come later, when Billy wouldn't feel compelled to wear clothing or be gentle when he held her against him.

She realized how much she needed to pee and wondered if she could slip out of Billy's grasp without waking him up. She didn't know about sliding out from under his arm, so she reached out and gingerly grabbed his wrist. She lifted his arm slowly, careful because she didn't know if he would resist in his sleep, and she set it down on the mattress. Then she took a deep breath and slid out from under the blanket as quietly as she could. She stepped off of the bed and walked backwards towards the corner of the room where the bathroom was located, watching Billy carefully as she went.

When she reached the bathroom she closed the door quietly and locked it. Not that locking it now would protect her from Billy's eyes later, but it still gave her some comfort. When she had flushed the toilet and washed her hands she stood in front of the mirror and stared at herself. Her hair had come out of the bun, and she combed it with her fingers before tying it in a messy-but-firm bun on the back of her head. The eye makeup she had worn the day before to school had smudged, and she used a piece of moist toilet paper to wipe away the black marks under and around her eyes. It seemed like forever ago that she'd stood in the bathroom in her dad's apartment and done her makeup and her hair for school.

She frowned at the dirty mirror and then at the messy bathroom around her and instinctively squatted down and opened the cabinet beneath the sink. Half a roll of paper towels, a quarter of a bottle of tile and sink cleaner, and a sprinkling of Comet toilet cleaner greeted her there. She took out the meager cleaning things and set them on the counter around the sink. Then she turned around and unlocked the door; if Billy woke up it would be better if he was able to burst in on her. Then she started to clean.

She hadn't looked at the clock when she got out of bed, but when she put the cleaning products back under the sink and left the bathroom, it was seven o'clock. Hmm, she thought dryly, nothing like three hours of sleep. When she looked away from the clock she realized that Billy was still asleep. She pondered whether he would be angry if he woke to find that she had left the bed and was snooping around his room—she refused to think of it as their room—and eventually decided that it would be best to slide back onto the mattress beside him.

And she did just that, creeping back to the bedside and getting under the blanket as quietly as she could and without making the mattress move much. She might have to be back in bed with him, but that didn't mean she had to curl up with him. She got under the blanket but stayed as far away from him as she could, nearly lying right on the edge of the mattress.

She knew that it hadn't really hit her yet that she wouldn't ever see her family again. Of course, she could have been optimistic and thought that she _might_ never see her family again. But she knew how serious the situation was. She knew that she'd been taken at least an hour away from where she was kidnapped and the murders happened. And she knew that if she was lucky enough to ever leave Billy's room, it would only be because he was sick of her and was sending her with one of his guys. And that was just as terrifying as waiting there in bed with him was. She knew that when it did hit her that she wouldn't ever see her family or her friends again, it was going to hit hard. And it was going to hurt. And there would be tears. Probably in front of Billy, but that didn't really matter. Well, it didn't matter on the large scale of things. But in a way it did matter, especially since all she'd done since she was kidnapped was keep her head held high and make sure that she had witty comebacks and remarks to make toward her captors. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry. It was her one and only desire, if she never made it out to see the people she loved, that she could at least go down fighting tooth and nail.

Her resolve faltered momentarily when Billy's arm found her waist and he pulled her back to him. He was only half awake. "Don't go so fuckin' far," he mumbled, "I was comfortable until you fucked things up and crawled away."

"I apologize," she said wryly. Then she added, "To all the baby pygmies."

His arm tightened around her and his breath was on her ear. "The fuck'd you say?" he asked, still mumbling. He pushed himself up onto his elbow so he could look down at her.

She turned her head to look back at him and repeated, "I apologize to all the baby pygmies."

This seemed to confuse him further. He frowned, blinking eyes still bleary from sleep at her.

It occurred to her that if they hadn't been in this situation, if he hadn't been a killer and a drunk and a druggie and a cruel person, if he hadn't been planning on raping her that night, that she would have found his early-morning confusion cute, even endearing. Shaking her head lightly to try and forget that revelation, she switched her attention back to him. He seemed conscious now.

His voice was as loud as it had been the day before, and he sounded awake when he asked, "Pygmies?"

He was frowning, and had one eyebrow raised questioningly.

"Pygmies," Tyler said, her expression deadly serious.

She knew he saw when her frown deteriorated into a pained look, and she turned away. She realized that she'd been quoting her father. Every time he made a mistake that was small enough to joke about, he would say, "I apologize to all the baby pygmies." And now, even though it still hadn't quite hit her that she would most likely never hear her dad say those words again, she missed him terribly and tears welled up in her eyes.

She blinked rapidly, fighting back the liquid that had risen unbidden and quite unwelcome. She sniffed as she brushed away the single tear that managed to leak down her cheek. She didn't turn back to look at Billy again until he started to move. When she did look at him, he was shaking his head.

"Crazy bitch," he muttered as he crawled over her and got out of bed. She watched him pull on his jeans and thread his belt through the loops. Then he found his shirt, and as he was putting that on he looked at the clock on the desk. He cursed under his breath and rubbed his eyes, seeming to have momentarily forgotten Tyler's presence. He ambled towards the bathroom, and halfway there he stopped and lifted his nose to sniff the air.

He walked to the bathroom and looked around inside, seeming surprised. He turned back to look at her, his expression one of annoyance. "You fucking got out of bed to fucking clean the bathroom?" Then he turned and went into the bathroom and closed the door without waiting for her response.

When he returned he pulled on his leather jacket. She expected him to go to the door without saying anything to her, but he turned and walked her way. She'd sat up in bed with her legs pulled up to her chest, and she hugged her knees as he approached.

She looked him right in the eyes as he moved towards her, doing her best not to appear as afraid of him as she was. He stopped, standing beside the bed, and grabbed her chin, lifting it towards him. Then he leaned down, placing a hard, sloppy kiss on her lips and forcing his tongue into her mouth. She didn't kiss him back at first, but he released her chin in favor of grabbing the back of her neck and pulling her to him more firmly. Then he pinched her, hard, and he didn't stop until she got the message and kissed him back just as vigorously as he was kissing her.

When at last he broke the kiss and pulled back, she lifted a hand to wipe her lips. He watched her wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and grinned at her. "You taste good, sweetheart," he said. "I'll be back later, and then the fun'll really begin."

Tyler took a deep breath. She waited until he'd closed and locked the door behind him before she said, "I can hardly wait," without much emotion in her voice. She stared at the door for another moment and then swung her legs over the edge of the bed and stood up. She'd worn a sweatshirt yesterday, her favorite one as a matter of fact, and it was lying on the floor with her jeans and her shoes. But she wasn't cold, so she didn't even bother to change into her jeans.

She stood there, beside the bed, for several minutes. Then she walked over to the window and pulled the curtains back. By the cloud of dust that rose when she moved them, she guessed that they hadn't been opened in ages. Coughing and waving a hand in front of her face to clear the air, she managed to get the window open. It was large enough for her to crawl through if she really tried, but it would take some effort because of how high it was set in the wall and how short she was. But when she stuck her head out and looked around, crawling out left her mind completely; she couldn't quite remember how many flights of stairs she'd been forced to climb the day before, but she figured she had to be on at least the third floor. There was nothing outside of the window for her to climb down or cling to, just a straight drop to the concrete steps far below.

Sighing, she tried to focus on the positive; at least the curtains and the window weren't nailed shut and she could get some light and fresh air into the place. She looked at the room around her and wondered how smart Billy Darley really was; if she'd been suicidal, there would have been a million options for her to choose from when it came to her death wish. Lucky for him, she'd never been suicidal and even now, faced with the night with Billy that was always approaching, she didn't feel like killing herself and ending it all.

She looked at the floor and wrinkled her nose; Billy might be able to keep her locked up in here, but if she was going to stay here then she was going to do a bit of cleaning. She couldn't stand such dirty conditions and cleaning house had always brought her satisfaction and enjoyment in the past, and she knew that it would probably calm her now. So she dropped to her hands and knees and started plucking wrappers and papers and cigarette butts from the carpet one by one. It had crossed her mind to leave the room, but the door locked from the inside and she'd heard footsteps that weren't Billy's several times in the hall outside that morning, and she didn't want to run into any men who were hanging around out there.

In about two hours the carpet was deep red and free of any trash. When she was finished with the floor she turned to the bed. She shook out all of the sheets and blankets, and was pleased to find that they were in fact the right size for the bed. So she made the bed, starting by stretching the bottom sheet over the mattress and ending by spreading a blanket neatly across it and smoothing it down. There were two pillows on the bed, and she fluffed them and put them back nicely. Then she folded the sheets and blankets that she didn't use and set them in a neat pile at the foot of the bed.

When that was finished she went to the bathroom to investigate the bathing accommodations. The shower worked, and it managed a steady stream of clean-looking, clean-smelling hot water. There were no bottles of shampoo, conditioner, or body wash lying around, and no razor was in sight. So she went to look under the sink again, and when she dug behind the few cleaning products she'd used earlier she found a small plastic tub. Inside was a bottle of shampoo, a bar of soap, a washcloth, and an unopened three-pack of women's razors. There was also a plastic bag containing a toothbrush and a full tube of toothpaste. When she discovered the contents of the box she picked it up and hugged it to her chest, leaning back and lifting her head. "If there is a god," she whispered, "then thank you."

She hated giving Billy the satisfaction of her cleaning or being physically clean herself, but if she was going to be forced to have sex that night then she was going to do it right. A clean room, a clean body, and a clean, well-made bed were things that she wished she could deny him but refused to deny herself.

She toyed with the shower until she got it to the proper temperature, and then she stripped and stepped inside. It felt amazing to have the water streaming over her, washing away the smell of the trafficking building and the blood from the little boy that had been killed before her eyes. She pushed those thoughts away, though, and tried to enjoy the feel of the water when it hit her skin. She savored the feeling of the soaped-up washcloth as she washed herself, and she prolonged the process of rubbing the shampoo into her hair and then washing it out. She had always brushed her teeth in the shower when she was back at home, and she did it now. When she was clean she grabbed the razor and shaved everything but her head.

There was a single towel in the bathroom, and she hastily dried her body and then her hair when she turned the water off. Then she combed through her hair with her fingers and tied it up in a pony-tail high on the back of her head. Then she wrapped the towel around her body and left the bathroom. She hoped and prayed that Billy wouldn't walk in now, when she was so scantily clad, but at the same time she was beyond caring, knowing that modesty would get her nowhere that night when he came back.

She went to the closet and looked around just as Billy had before, when he found the running shorts. She found a large black trash bag that looked like it was stuffed with fabric, and when she opened it she found that it was full of brand-new women's clothes. She was sure they were new because all of the clothes had tags and stickers on them still, and a few things were still on hangers. She dug around until she found an unopened bag of bikini underwear. That was the kind she usually wore, and they were her size. So she set the panties aside and found a bra her size, which she set aside also. Then she found a t-shirt that was a size too big for her, and she changed into her new clothes, though she wore the running shorts from the night before with the other new things. She closed the bag and put it back in its corner when she was finished looking through it.

She wondered absently if Billy would be pissed with her for looking through his stuff. Then again, she sort of hoped that it would piss him off; anything to keep her in the lead in their silently-fought battle. She looked around the closet for deodorant or perfume, but found none. So she went and stood by the window, where a breeze blew in and she wouldn't sweat. She wasn't keeping clean for Billy; she hated being dirty and smelling bad. Of course, she'd grown up on a ranch and knew how to work hard and wasn't afraid to work and sweat and get covered from head to toe in dirt. But she hated sleeping dirty or spending longer than she needed to in a state of bad hygiene.

She watched the clock and waited, and at eleven o'clock someone was at the door. Whoever it was had a key and unlocked it. She was seated on the bed with her legs crossed and she watched Billy walk in and close the door behind him. His eyes swept the room and then found her, and when he saw her he scrutinized her. She knew that she had wet hair and her makeup had been washed away, along with whatever perfume she'd had on the day before. Now she was just simple, plain Tyler with no enhancements or things to hide her natural appearance from him.

His eyes darted to the closet and then back to her, then to the window and the curtains that she'd opened, and then back to her. She realized that he was holding a white plastic bag, the kind that you could get at a grocery or convenience store.

"You cleaned up," he said as he walked over. "I'm flattered."

She watched his approach. "Don't be," she said flatly.

He smiled at her impudence and stopped, standing beside the bed and in front of her. He held out the bag and dropped it in her lap. He didn't tell her to open it, and even though she was curious about what was in the bag—since it was obviously more than a bottle of birth control pills or meds—she didn't give him the satisfaction.

"Don't look so fuckin' nervous," he said after a moment, "I'll be back later, and that's when I'll be sticking around for the night."

She said nothing and stared right back at him when he continued to look at her and didn't walk away. She waited for his explanation and he said at last, "I'm not leaving until you open that bag and take those meds.

She remembered the bag in her lap and looked down, slowly opening it. Inside was deodorant, a hairbrush, a bottle of water, an apple, and a clear plastic bag. She wished she could focus on the other items, but the contents of the clear plastic bag caught and held her attention.

The bag held three small syringes, an unopened plastic box of sterilized needles, and a bottle of milky-white liquid. She let herself forget about the other things in the bag Billy had given her, and she took the bag of syringes and needles out. She read the label on the bottle of liquid. So it was birth control. But a new, different kind. A kind that would prevent her from having periods for a whole six months. She made sure that none of the bottles or containers had been opened or used before. Not that it would matter much; she knew that he'd make her take the meds whether they were clean or not.

Sighing to herself, she opened the box of needles and selected the proper size. She knew how to give shots; she'd done it hundreds of times to the calves on her parents' ranch. She knew what she needed to do. She attached the needle and loaded the syringe with the right amount of white liquid. Then she got rid of any air bubbles in the liquid and set the syringe beside her on the bed. She looked up at Billy, who was watching her every move carefully. He snatched the bottle of liquid from her and read the label to make sure she was following the instructions.

She waited until she had his nod of approval and then picked the syringe up, staring at the needle that she was about to stick into her arm.

"Hold up," Billy said as she was about to do it, "you know what you're doing?"

She wanted to laugh, but she didn't. "Yeah," she said.

"Now, are you basing your skill-level on what you've learned from watching nurses give shots?" he asked. "Because you don't seem like the type to faint at blood or pain, but . . ." he trailed off suggestively, watching her expression closely.

She hated telling him anything about her life before him, but she looked him in the eye and said, "I grew up on a ranch. I was the person in charge of giving shots and medication when we branded and castrated. I know exactly what I'm doing."

He lifted his hands in mock surrender, but she hadn't missed the way his eye twitched when she said "branded and castrated."

Taking a deep breath, she held the needle over her upper-arm for a split-second and then stuck the needle in herself, not even flinching when she did. She injected the fluid slowly and then took out the needle, gently rubbing the place where she'd just injected herself. Then she stood up and walked to the bathroom, where she washed the syringe and the needle thoroughly. She put them both back in their bag and container, but she knew which ones she'd already used.

She had expected Billy to leave while she was in the bathroom, but he was still there when she got back and he just watched her as she moved around. "It says that the meds won't kick in for twenty-four hours," she said without looking at him.

She looked up when he shrugged and said, "If you get pregnant tonight, sweetheart, the meds'll kick in tomorrow and you'll abort."

She swallowed. "Great," she said.

But his mind seemed to be on other things. "So," he said after a moment, "I got me a cowgirl."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "I lived in California until I was eleven. But I grew up visiting the ranch and we moved there just before my twelfth birthday. Why, regretting your decision to purchase me?"

His eyes turned cold and he laughed cruelly. "I'll decide that later when we find out whether you know how to ride."

She rolled her eyes. "_Clever_," she said, curling her lip at him in disgust.

He grinned and started to walk away.

She should have kept her mouth shut, but she couldn't help it; he was almost to the door when she said, "You know, I wasn't always in charge of medicating and giving shots. I learned how to brand and castrate too."

He turned and looked at her for a moment before he said, "And I kill men and sell drugs and steal things for a living. We're one hell of a fuckin' skilled pair, we are."

She waited until he left and then she jumped on the bag that contained the food. She put on deodorant and brushed her hair before she took a small sip of water and ate her apple. She ate slowly, enjoying her food because she didn't know when her next meal would be. She was far from overweight, so she didn't think Billy would put her on a diet or try to starve her, but she didn't know what he thought she needed to survive. She took small sips of water, trying to conserve it as best she could; she could always refill it in the bathroom, but she didn't quite trust the water enough to drink it unless she absolutely had to.

When she had finished eating, having thoroughly cleaned every edible bit of the apple from the core, she tossed it into the trash and glanced at the clock. It read twelve-thirty. She sighed, wondering exactly when "later" was and Billy would be back. She certainly wasn't looking forward to his return, but it was inevitable, and the things that would take place after he came back were unavoidable.

She went to the bathroom to brush her teeth again after eating. Then she went and sat on the edge of the bed, looking over herself. She had showered, brushed her teeth and her hair, and was wearing clean clothes. Because she'd pulled it up, her hair was still damp, so she let it down and brushed it again.

Part of her was tired enough to get back into bed and take a nap, but she was afraid that Billy would come back while she was sleeping. Not that it would make any difference in what he did to her, but she would feel a lot safer if she was awake and completely aware of him when he walked in.

She sat crisscross-applesauce on the bed and when she had finished brushing her hair she set the brush on the bed beside her. She thought over what had happened to her so far. It was bad, but it wasn't half as bad as what was going to happen to her when Billy got back. The she thought about Billy, and she thought about what she thought of him.

She knew that if she'd met him in any other place and he hadn't been who he was, she would have found him very attractive. Hell, she found him incredibly sexy as it was, even under the current circumstances. He had the kind of attractively-messy facial hair she wanted to feel scratching her face. And those stunning green eyes that were always watching her. His smile was dazzling, and even though he'd only smile cruelly at her and with bad intentions so far, it had always taken her breath away. And she clearly remembered what he'd looked like shirtless the night before; he'd looked pretty damn hot.

He was muscled and toned, but not too much, and that was what she had always liked in men. He had a large frame and was easily four or five inches taller than her, and his shoulders were wider than hers. She was petite and thin, but she hadn't always been and it was always something she looked for in a guy, that his shoulders were broader than hers. She had sat on Billy's lap. She knew he could easily lift and carry her.

He was a very handsome man, but that only made things more complicated because Tyler knew that she was supposed to hate him. And she was terrified of what he would do to her that night. She knew he'd give her reason to hate him then. But even after he'd taken her virginity, she knew that she would always find him attractive and part of her brain would always imagine her threading her fingers through his or wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him.

She knew that she should be afraid of what he would do to her, and in a way, she was. But more than anything, she was afraid that she would enjoy what he did to her. Of course she doubted that he would be gentle with her, and she knew it would probably hurt her, but she had always been active and she wasn't ignorant when it came to pleasuring herself, so she was pretty sure she knew what was coming. Besides, she had a very high pain tolerance and she was stubborn as hell, and she wasn't going to let Billy get a single scream out of her, no matter how much he hurt her.

She sat there on the edge of the bed thinking for another hour. Then she stood up and walked to where she'd put her new deodorant under the sink, placing her hairbrush there as well. Then she walked back to the bed, glancing out the window on her way. But when she looked out the window she stopped dead in her tracks and stared; a small family of four was walking on the sidewalk a ways away. They were too far to hear her if she called out to them, and she knew that they would steer clear of the building she was in. But it wasn't the hope of rescue that stopped her cold. It was the way her throat closed up when she saw that the little girl was sitting on her dad's shoulders, her hands on his bald head as walked. And his little boy walked beside him, clinging to one of his father's fingers because it was all that would fit in his tiny hand.

She could remember countless times that she had ridden on her dad's shoulders. And she remembered driving with him to the store for truck parts multiple times, and always they would walk through the parking lot side by side with her holding one or two of his fingers.

She was close to her mom, too, and her little brothers. But in spite of the many differences between her father and her and the many times he had hurt her feelings and she his, she was closest to him. It was why he asked if she wanted to go to California with him and live in his apartment for the month that he would be staying. He'd asked because he knew that she could cook and clean and do her own school, and he wouldn't have to worry about keeping her in check or taking care of her. She could take care of herself, and she'd taken care of him, too. She'd made him dinner plenty of times, and he'd come home from a long day at work to a hot, home-cooked meal waiting for him. She knew how to duplicate his homemade recipe for the best martinis anyone ever tasted, and she knew exactly how he liked to drink his beers. She knew how early he liked to get up before work and she had always been sure to get up half an hour before him so she could make him coffee and breakfast, and so she would be there to hug and kiss him goodbye before he left for work.

She knew what he'd come home to the night before; she'd made her mom's recipe for homemade macaroni and cheese and had left it in the oven, planning to be back before he got home. But just in case she was a little late, she'd written a quick note. She could picture herself writing the words even now:

_Dad,_

_Went to Joe's station to grab a snack and some beef jerky for you. Dinner's in the oven. Be home in a few. –Tyler_

She knew he would have read the note and checked to make sure that the food was still hot and that it wasn't burning, and then he would have sat down in front of the TV to wait until she got back. She knew that he would wait half an hour before calling the gas station where she'd gone. He would know that Joe didn't close shop until nine, and it was five-thirty when he got home. When nobody answered he had probably assumed that Joe was busy chatting with her or that he was helping someone. But when he left a friendly message that wasn't returned half an hour later, he got worried.

She felt like someone was slowly squeezing all of the air out of her lungs when it hit her; her dad would have gotten into the car and driven to the gas station after trying to call a few more times. He was probably the first person to arrive at the scene after the gang showed up and took her. He was probably the first person to see Joe's blood spattered across the shelves of cigarettes and chewing tobacco that stood behind the counter. She could picture her dad panicking when he saw the blood and then when he saw Joe's lifeless body. But she knew that he wouldn't call the cops right away. No, her silly, protective, oversensitive father would look for his little girl before he called the authorities.

She knew that he would have called for her and started walking around through the aisles, looking for some sign of her. She knew that he would come to the candy aisle and see the pool of blood before he saw Timmy's headless corpse. She knew that he would think it was her blood until he saw Timmy. And she knew that he would find her bag there on the floor with Timmy, right where she'd dropped it when she pushed the little boy to the ground and attempted to shield his body with her own as the men came to the back of the store and pointed guns at them. And he would know, she was sure. Sure, he'd look in the bathrooms and run around screaming for her, but deep down he would know as he held her blood-splattered bag to his chest that his baby girl had been taken.

Then he would call the cops. He would demand that they come now. And they would. And he'd explain and tell them that he'd found his daughter's bag. Surely her bag would be enough, but even if it wasn't, she was always leaving one of her long blonde hairs around, and they were sure to find one of those.

She had seen her dad when he was panicking before, and it was when one of her brothers had been in an accident while playing and nearly lost his eye. His cheek had been bleeding profusely beneath his eye and at first glance it had looked like her three-year old brother would have only one eye for the rest of his life. Her dad had been so concerned, so afraid, and it had showed on his face. They'd all looked to him in the emergency and he'd been strong, but behind his stoic face Tyler had seen how scared he really was. And she knew that he didn't have a family to be brave for when he found her bag and not her. She knew he wouldn't look so stoic. No, the panic and the fear would be obvious, even in front of the cops.

And then it really did hit her. She would never see her dad again. There wasn't any "might" or "maybe" about it. But she didn't care about herself. She didn't care what happened to her, she just felt so, so bad that she'd left her daddy wondering what had happened to his baby girl.

She turned around and leaned against the wall, sliding down it until she was sitting down. "Daddy," she sobbed, breaking down, "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry Daddy. I love you. I'm sorry. It'll be okay. I don't know how, but I promise that it will."

She realized that he couldn't hear her and then she started to cry harder. And blubbering to him wasn't helping him find her or giving him peace of mind about how she was doing. So she pulled her knees up to her chest and buried her head in her hands and just let it all flow out. Eventually she slid down onto the floor and curled up on her side in the fetal position, hugging her knees and gasping as her body was racked with sobs. She didn't know how long she lay there, but she didn't have the strength to get up or to look at the clock.

She finally pulled herself together and sat up, her knees still against her chest. She wiped away the tears and stood up to walk to the bathroom. She looked at herself in the mirror and used a wet edge of the washcloth to clean up her face. Then she brushed her hair again. When she'd finished cleaning herself up and there was no sign that she'd ever been crying aside from the dull ache in her chest, she went and sat down on the bed.

She spent the rest of her time alone trying to think of anything but her family, especially her dad. And she managed until he got back.

The sun was setting outside when Billy returned at around eight o'clock. Tyler hadn't left her seat on the edge of the bed and she looked up when he walked in. Those piercing green eyes looked right back, and as soon as he'd closed and locked the door behind him he walked to the window. He closed it, and shut the curtains, never letting his gaze waver from her. When the curtains were closed and they were in semi-darkness, he started walking towards her. He had started to strip as he walked from the door to the window. His jacket was first to come off, and then he reached up and grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled it over his head. He kicked off his shoes, and his belt and jeans were on the floor an instant later.

She watched his face, waiting for his boxers to join the rest of his clothes, lying at his feet. But he stopped stripping then, and said, "Come here."

She knew what was coming. And she trembled in frightened anticipation. There was no escape. But she wasn't going to break. He wasn't going to crack her resolve. She was going to dance with the devil, but she was going to do it with grace and she wasn't going to lose her pride or her decency in the process. So she stood up and walked to where he stood. She didn't stop until she could walk no further without treading on his toes. But she held her head high and looked him in the eye the entire time.

He reached up to trace her jawline with a finger and he said, "Hello, sweetheart."

Moments later her shorts and t-shirt were on the floor, and his boxers and her bra and panties followed suite. She knew that he expected that he would have to tell her what to do, and she knew it surprised him when she acted without his order. She knew just where to kiss him, and how, and where to touch him, and when. He seemed taken aback but pleased by her skill.

And then he pushed her into the bed on her back and got on top of her. She was surprised that he'd chosen such a simple position but didn't say a word about it. A million things were running through her mind, but she pushed them all aside in favor of staring defiantly up at him as he leaned back to look at her, lying there naked beneath him. Then he lowered himself so that they were pressed together and she was bearing his weight. She had wondered in passing how heavy he was, but his weight felt natural on her, even comfortable.

And he had his way with her.

She had sworn to herself that she would not scream or cry out should it hurt, but her real problem turned out to be that she had to remember to keep quiet because it didn't. There was a dull, initial pain at first, but that was gone in an instant, replaced by pleasure. She'd promised herself that she would lie unresponsive on the bed as long as he would let her, but she found herself with her arms wrapped around his neck and her face pressed into his shoulder, clinging to him and trying to remember to breathe.

But the worst thing was that she actually liked it. The enjoyment was not allowed, and she was not supposed to be holding back moans of pleasure. She was supposed to be holding back groans and screams of pain. She hated Billy, but she didn't hate the way that he made her feel during sex, and she hated herself for not hating it. And there, on the bed, she lost her virginity to the man that would probably be doing this very same thing to her every night for the next ten years of her life, if both of them lived that long.


	3. Dinner For Two

She woke the next morning and found her forehead leaning against Billy's chest. He had his arms around her and her head rested on one of his biceps. She lifted her head so that her chin leaned against his chest and looked up at his face. The ever-present frown and glare lines that she'd always seen had vanished and he looked relaxed when he was sleeping. Of course, she remembered, he hadn't been glaring or even frowning at her the night before.

And then it came back to her and realized that they were both naked. She shifted slightly and grimaced at the sticky sensation between her legs, but reminded herself to be thankful it wasn't a painful one.

The way that Billy was holding her prevented her from moving much or slipping out of his grasp without waking him, so she closed her eyes and tried to go back to sleep. Sleep wouldn't come, however, so she just lay there with her eyes closed and listened to the steady rhythm of Billy's heart beating. Her head moved with his chest when it rose and fell as he breathed, and she wondered, in the event that she did ever get the hell out of there and away from Billy, if she would ever be able to sleep with her boyfriend or her husband without thinking back to the gang member who had taken her virginity and her freedom. She knew that it would be impossible. But it wasn't something that she needed to worry about; she was never getting out of there anyway.

Billy stirred, interrupting her thoughts. She wanted to open her eyes and look up to see if he was waking up, but she decided to pretend that she was asleep instead. This way, she could see if he would do anything to her in her sleep, only she would be completely aware of it. He shifted his position so that he was more on top of her than she him, and she hoped to god that he would wake up soon because she didn't want to be this close to him for much longer.

When at last she got tired of pretending to be asleep, she sighed and moved a little, pretending to wake up. Then she looked up at his face again. He was watching her, his eyes clear of sleep. "Morning, sweetheart," he said, grinning with a glint of evil in his green eyes.

She glared at him and tried to roll over so that she was facing away from him. But as soon as he had allowed her to succeed he sat up in bed and crawled over her. She averted her eyes from his naked body as he did and tried to focus on anything but him.

When he had gotten out of bed he turned and stood there, watching her. She sat up, holding the blanket up to cover her bare chest and keeping her eyes on his face. "Enjoy our time together?" he asked, though the look on his face said that he already knew the answer.

She didn't answer, looking away.

"You did," he said, grinning at her. Then he leaned down quickly, catching her off guard, and dragged his lips along her jawline. "You know," he breathed in her ear, "just because you're here for my pleasure doesn't mean you can't enjoy yourself."

She trembled at his touch and felt her breath catch in her throat at his words, and she tried to tell herself that it was because she was afraid. But it wasn't fear, and she knew it. She still had every reason to fear Billy Darley and what he might do to her, but her irrational lack of fear had returned, especially after the night before.

She looked away until he had pulled on his underwear, and then she watched him as he got dressed. Her stomach growled, but she didn't say anything about it and he didn't seem to have heard the noise.

Then he came over to the side of the bed and stroked her cheek. "I'll be back early tonight," he said, a devious smile curling his lips back to show his teeth.

She looked him in the eyes when she said, "Oh, joy," sarcastically.

He just smirked at her before he left.

As soon as he closed the door behind him she jumped out of bed and ran to the bathroom. She started the shower, hastily adjusting the temperature before jumping in. The hot water and the soap and the shampoo washed away the sweat and the sticky substances her body had created the night before. But she still felt dirty. She took the washcloth and scrubbed herself until her skin was an angry red color, but the feeling that she was unclean just wouldn't go away. And she knew that even if she tore off her own skin and shaved of her hair, the skin and the hair that Billy had touched, had kissed, had run his fingers over, even then she would still feel dirty and contaminated.

She felt dirty because he had touched her, kissed her, stroked her, and held her. But it was more than that. She felt dirty because she had enjoyed it when he touched her like that, and she knew she wasn't supposed to. And her guilty soul was trapped in a body that was no longer that of a virgin. Trapped until the day she died. Billy had run his hands over every possible surface of her body, had kissed nearly as much.

She pushed away thoughts of her night with Billy and took a moment to wonder if her family was doing alright. Today marked two days since she'd been kidnapped. And she had quite a story to tell already. At the thought of her dad, she leaned against the tiled wall and slid down it, the water still pouring over her. She pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged her legs, and her own hot tears joined the liquid that ran down her skin.

What day was it? She took a deep breath, thinking. It had been December first, the day she was taken from Joe's gas station. The day after that, when Billy came back and . . . well, that had been the second. So it was December third. She and her dad would have been leaving to go home in a week. But not anymore. God, she hoped her mom wouldn't fly down to look for her and be with her dad. Better if he went home. And she hoped he would go home for Christmas. She knew that they would think of her just as often as she thought of them. But Christmas was special, and she wished it wouldn't be spoiled with them wondering where she was and if she was even still alive.

Eventually she had to stand up and turn off the water. Then she used the one towel to dry off and changed into more clean clothes from Billy's trash bag of them in the closet. She found another bag, an empty one, and put the dirty laundry in it, wondering if she would have to ask him to take it to a laundry place. So far she'd only seen him wearing a single outfit, but she dug around in the closet and found that he had plenty of clothes of his own. Clothes that had, as hers had likely, been stolen. She bit her lip and threw away a cigarette butt Billy had tossed to the floor the day before and then she went to the window. She opened the curtains and the window and looked out over the city. She couldn't see much, what with the smog and all of the tall, deserted buildings blocking her view.

She wondered absently if she'd ever see the family of four again. Part of her wanted to see them, and another part knew how foolish it was because seeing them would only make her miss her own family.

Billy returned at noon, and he threw another plastic bag containing something at her. He seemed pleased to find that she was wearing more of the clothes he'd stolen for her, but she pretended not to notice his lustful stare. Instead, she opened the bag and found another apple, this time accompanied by small cheeseburger from McDonalds. She nodded her silent thanks to him and then he left.

Then she went and stood by the window while she ate. She drank the rest of the water in her bottle and went to the bathroom, tasting the water that came out of the faucet before she filled the plastic bottle. She smiled down at the water; it would taste strange, even disgusting to other people because of the minerals and chlorine that she knew was in it. But to her, it tasted like home. The water that came out of the faucets and spickets back on her parents' ranch tasted exactly like the water that was available now. She was used to the taste, and had grown accustomed to it over the years, even so much that she hated the taste of bottle water. To her, the water bought in stores tasted like plastic.

She drank water more freely then, both because she liked the taste and because she could get it from the sink and it would always be there. She savored every small bite of the cheeseburger, saving the apple for later. Billy hadn't brought her dinner the night before, and she'd like to have something to hold her over if that was the case again.

She expected Billy to show up maybe an hour or two earlier than he had the night before, but he burst into the room at three-thirty in the afternoon. She hadn't been expecting him and had been looking out the window and trying to make shapes out of the few fluffy clouds that hung in the sky.

She whipped around in surprise when Billy not only bust through the door, but stalked up to her. He grabbed her arm and she was nervous that he was angry about something until a grin split across his face.

"Come on," he said breathlessly. He started dragging her towards the door, but she caught on and walked in the right direction on her own.

She wanted to ask what was the matter, why he was taking her out of the room that had been her prison for the last two days, but her throat closed up with sudden fear that she was going to be sold again. Sold again, just as she was starting to think that maybe belonging to Billy Darley could be bearable. But why? What had she done wrong? She could clearly remember that he had been pleased and satisfied with her performance in bed the night before, so why was he getting rid of her?

She glanced over her shoulder at the door to the room, which Billy had slammed shut and not even bothered to lock. She had no belongings there besides the apple she'd saved for supper, but she still felt like she was losing something if Billy was selling her.

He seemed almost excited, grinning profusely and gripping her arm tightly as he steered her back down the flights of stairs and hallways she'd been brought through two days before. She wanted to turn and look at his face, to search his expression for some explanation, but he was pushing her so quickly that they were nearly running, and she had to keep her eyes on her feet to keep from tripping or falling. Not that she would have gotten far; Billy's hand was clamped on her upper-arm like an iron vice and she doubted he would let her fall far before jerking her back to her feet.

Billy kept moving, and she kept right along with him, all of the way to the front doors of the building, where they burst out into the sunlight and went down the stairs. There was a sleek black car with bright orange flames on its sides waiting beyond the sidewalk. As Billy pushed her towards it and opened the door for her to get into the passenger seat, he said, "Sweetheart, you made the news."

Tyler was so surprised that she didn't move or try to run away after she'd gotten in and when Billy moved around the truck and slid into the driver's seat. He locked the doors with the click of a button, but she had other things than running away on her mind.

Billy turned the key and the radio came on, and there it was. Her name. She heard it once, twice, and then again. They were talking about Joe and Timmy's murders. And then they started talking about her. They said that she'd been taken from the station and that no one had seen her since her disappearance. Then they gave a brief description of what she looked like and said that the men who took her had been wearing masks and that they'd covered up their license plate, so they were unknowns.

Billy was grinning from ear to ear, looking proud to call himself the owner of something that was important enough to make the news.

But Tyler didn't see it, because just then she heard a voice on the radio that was unmistakable. She automatically straightened, leaning towards the stereo in the car as if it would bring her closer to the owner of the voice. It was her dad. He was talking slowly and carefully, and though she knew no one else would be able to tell, she could hear the tone of voice he was using and knew that he was staying as stable as he could for his interview and trying not to break down.

"And now," a female voice interrupted, "we're playing a part of the interview that we just had with Jeffrey Williamson, the father of Tyler Williamson, who was kidnapped the evening of December first."

Tyler felt her throat close up when she heard her father's name. And she couldn't breathe at all when she heard his voice.

"She's a good kid," he said. "She always has been. She's talented, beautiful, good in school. She doesn't deserve this. Words can't describe properly how grateful Tyler's mother and I would be to anyone who has seen her or knows where she is." And then his tone became biting and cold, dangerous, and he said, "And whoever took her, if you're listening to this you son of a . . ." he trailed off, taking a deep breath before he continued. "You give back my little girl and you give her back healthy and in one piece. I swear to god, I'll find you, you bastard. I'll find you."

Then there was the voice of a different, unfamiliar man, and Tyler realized that he must have been the man who conducted the interview when he asked, "If Tyler's listening to this, what would you like to tell her?"

Tyler didn't know when tears had welled up in her eyes, but they spilled over her cheeks like a flood when her dad's voice cracked as he said, "Tyler, I love you so much, and so does your mom and so do your brothers. It's gonna be okay; we're going to get you back safe and sound. Stay strong, Punkin."

She was trembling before he said it, but when he said the last word, called her his nickname for her that he'd been using since she was a baby, she bit her lip until she drew blood. She tried to keep it from happening, but she couldn't; she hugged her knees and rested her forehead on them as the tears streamed down her face and sobs racked her body.

She lifted her head and set her chin on her knees, looking at Billy through her tears when he spoke.

"Well," he said, "I didn't take you, now, did I? So Daddy's threats aren't directed at me. I'm fuckin' free to do with you as I please."

"You'll be on his list," Tyler heard herself growl through clenched teeth, "I swear to god if I ever get away from you that I'll make sure of it."

He only smiled. "Well, _Punkin_," he said, smiling wider when he saw the way she flinched as he used the nickname, "you aren't ever going back to Daddy, so I'm not too fucking worried about that. And if he comes looking for you I'll bring him back here and kill him while you watch."

She wondered how it had happened so fast, but the tears had stopped flowing. The sadness and pain and fear was gone, replaced by hatred and anger that were stronger than anything she'd ever felt before. She didn't even wipe away the tears. She just put her feet back on the floor where they were supposed to be, folded her hands in her lap, and turned to look at him, smiling as sweetly as she possibly could in her anger. Then, in the sweetest, most polite voice she could manage, she said, still smiling, "If you lay a finger on my father, I swear to god I'll tear you apart with my bare hands."

He only smirked at the reaction he'd gotten from her, but if he thought she'd missed the way his eye twitched, he was wrong.

She reached out and pushed the button, turning off the radio. "Well," she said, wiping away the tears and smearing the liquid on her jeans, "are we going to go for a drive or are we going back to your room?"

He grinned and said, "Sweetheart, we're going back to our room to do what Daddy fears most."

Then he got out of the car and walked around to open her door. When he did, he raised an eyebrow as she stepped out, offering him her arm to grab if he wanted.

He narrowed his eyes at her suspiciously so she said, "What? You think I'm stupid enough to believe that I could run faster than you if I took off? And even if I could, I have no idea where I am. How the hell would I get away if you knew every corner and building and I didn't know shit?"

He smirked once more and put his hand on her lower back, ushering her back up the steps and through the big front doors. He kept his hand on her back, but she never once stepped out of line. On the way back to the room, she did give each and every man they passed the coldest, most murderous glare that she had in her. And she was still spitting mad about Billy threatening her dad, so she knew her glares were especially venomous right then. A few of the men even flinched.

When they got back into the room and while Billy was closing and locking the door, Tyler asked, "Did you graduate high school?"

He turned and frowned at her. "Why're you so fuckin' talkative all the fuckin' sudden?" he demanded. "You're supposed to be scared and withdrawn because I fucked you."

She shrugged nonchalantly. "You can make me have sex with you," she said without turning around. "Why does that have to affect the way we talk to each other? I'm just bored and trying to make conversation."

He laughed cruelly. "Bored?" he repeated. "I think I can fix that."

She turned around and rolled her eyes. "Once again, you're so clever," she spat sarcastically.

He smiled. "I wasn't actually talking about fucking you for once," he said.

She frowned at him, wondering what he had up his sleeve.

And she got her answer a moment later, when he picked up a leather bag she hadn't noticed him dropping earlier when he came to take her to the car. He opened it and pulled out a white and red McDonald's paper bag.

As soon as the leather bag was open the scent of still-warm food spread through the room and Tyler's mouth watered. But she didn't let Billy know that, wondering if he was just taunting her. Was he going to make her feed him? Would she even get a single french-fry?

But her frown only deepened when Billy said, "Dinner for two," and walked over the bed, where he sat down, setting the bag beside him and patting the place beside it.

And she obeyed, moving to sit on the bed with the bag in between them. He was digging through the bag, but her eyes were on his face. She sighed. "You know, if you weren't a sadistic, thieving, heartless, murdering rapist, and if we'd never had sex . . . we could be friends."

He stopped what he was doing in the bag and his gaze rose to meet hers. "Friends," he repeated questioningly, sounding doubtful.

She shrugged. "If you weren't a gang member who's killed multiple people and who does drugs and is an alcoholic and steals things for a living, yeah."

He seemed unimpressed. "So we could be friends," he said, "if I wasn't . . . me."

She nodded. "Yep," she said cheerfully.

"Why the fuck would you—would anyone—want to be friends with me?" he asked, frowning at her.

She was surprised when he asked why anyone would want to be friends with him, rather than asking only about her. But she decided not to mention it and shrugged again. "Well, aside from the killing and the drugs and the drinking and the theft and the sex, you seem like you have an interesting personality. And I tend—_tended_—to make friends with unusual people."

He snorted. "You would be my . . . friend," he asked, but it sounded more like a questioning statement.

"Well I don't really have a lot of choices, now, do I?" she asked in response.

He snorted again, his eyes returning to his hands in the bag. "You are one fuckin' weird girl."

"Thanks, I know," she said. But her eyes had left his face and dropped to see what he was doing in the bag. He pulled out a cardboard box that Tyler guessed held a Big Mac, and her stomach growled and her mouth watered at the sight of it. She glanced at Billy to see if he'd heard, and it was apparent by his gaze resting on her stomach that he had.

"'D you eat the food I brought earlier?" he asked.

She raised her eyebrows and looked up at him. Then she said sarcastically, "No, I was so full already that I ripped it up and threw it out the window and watched the birds eat it."

He smirked at her sass but said nothing.

Then he pulled out a large cardboard container of fries and handed that to her as well. He pulled out his own food and began to eat, not noticing that Tyler waited until he'd taken his first bite to even open her cardboard box. She leaned over and glanced down into the bag, smiling when she found a napkin and a small packet of ketchup. She spread the napkin on her lap, squeezed the ketchup onto her fries, and started to eat. She grabbed her water bottle and was just twisting the cap to open it when Billy held out a large drink to her.

"There's only one, so don't fucking drink it all," he said.

She nodded and took the drink from him, allowing herself only a small swallow of it before she held it out to him again. It was a strawberry shake, her favorite flavor. And it was a flavor that she'd thought she might never taste ever again.

She had never eaten in front of Billy before, and he'd never eaten while she was there. She knew that he was watching her as she bit into her burger, chewed, and swallowed. She had always paid attention to her table manners, and it was a pet peeve of hers when other people had bad manners while eating. Her brothers used to drive her crazy by intentionally chewing with their mouths open or talking before they'd swallowed their food. So she did her best to ignore Billy's eating, especially since he had terrible manners and she knew she couldn't scold him or do anything to him for it. And if he found out how much she hated his manners, he would probably be sure to exaggerate them further just to bother her.

Tyler had always been a fast eater in spite of her manners, and she finished her food first even though she'd savored and enjoyed every bite. She washed it down with a gulp of water from her bottle and decided to make conversation. "What's your favorite color?" she asked suddenly.

He had been focusing on slurping the shake, but he turned and looked at her incredulously when she asked. "Don't fuckin' have one," he said.

"Then pick one," she said.

He raised his eyebrows. Then he stared at her for a few seconds and said, "Brown."

She bit her lip. "Brown," she repeated. "Why brown?"

He frowned. "God," he said, "I choose a color like you want and then it's not fucking good enough? The fuck?"

Tyler shrugged. "I never said it wasn't good enough. I was just curious about why you picked brown."

He just turned away and finished drinking the shake. Or so she thought; a moment later he turned back to her and handed her the cup.

She thought he was handing her the empty cup and that he expected her to take it to the trash. But when it was in her hands she could tell that the cup wasn't empty yet. Was he really giving her the rest of the drink? She narrowed her eyes at him, never letting her gaze leave him as she lifted the straw slowly to her lips and took a sip of the pink liquid in the cup.

He had been watching her, and he seemed completely uninterested in her consumption of the remaining shake, so she drank the rest. She looked around the room as she did, and when she'd finished the last of it she put it in the bag that sat on the bed between them. She started in surprise and looked quickly up at Billy when he hit the bag suddenly, pushing it off the bed.

He smirked at her wide-eyed look of surprise and leaned forward suddenly, putting his hand on the back of her neck and pulling her in for a long, deep, drawn-out kiss. The kind of kiss that, once again, made her want more.

She knew what he wanted; he'd satisfied his stomach and now he needed to satisfy his _other_ desires. She'd known this was coming. She'd anticipated it with curiosity, wondering if he would treat her more roughly tonight since it wasn't her first time. She'd wondered whether it would be as pleasurable an experience as the night before had been.

And in truth, it was just as good, if not better.


	4. Unwelcome News

The next week passed similarly; Billy left her in the mornings and she spent her days cleaning the rooms, making the bed, napping, showering, and standing by the window. Billy always returned at about five o'clock, and she started showering in the afternoon so that she could clean and do some exercises in the room before she cleaned herself up. Billy always brought lunch at around noon, and it was usually a sandwich or a burger and an apple. She started keeping the apples to eat for breakfast the following morning, and he would bring something for dinner when he came back. Sometimes he ate dinner before he got there, and sometimes they would eat together.

And something started happening to their relationship. Maybe it was the eating together, maybe it was the sex. Or maybe it was because Tyler talked to him while they ate, and after a few days of listening to her ramble Billy started talking back. And she found that he _was_ becoming her friend. As she'd said before, she didn't have many options when it came to picking friends nowadays, but if she just focused on who Billy was when he was with her, she could picture them as friends. Sometimes she was even able to forget that he killed people and stole things and was a really bad person. When they weren't having sex she pretended that they never had and never would, and it was the only thing that enabled her to think of him as a friend.

Sex with him was enjoyable, wonderful and awe-inspiring, even, but it was something she tried not to think about when it wasn't happening. She was skilled and learned exactly what he liked and what to do. But it changed by the time of day; by day she was Billy's prisoner, forced to talk to only him and pretend that he was her friend, and by night she was his lover.

She knew not to romanticize the things he did to her. He was seeking pleasure, and he found it in her. He didn't care about her wellbeing beyond the physical, and only because she needed to be healthy enough for him to _use_. Sometimes he was rough, sometimes playful, sometimes gentle and slow. But no matter how passionate the sex, Tyler knew that he was only in it for the pleasure and she was only there to give him that. He would only be annoyed if she died or ran away because he'd paid for her and she was wasted money. He wouldn't bat an eye at losing her if one of his guys offered a ridiculous sum of money for her. He didn't care about her. He didn't love her or respect her. He didn't want her. He wanted her body. No more, no less. And she knew it.

And she was right to think in such a way. But she wasn't completely correct; Billy did care about her, though he refused even to admit it to himself. All the girls he'd ever screwed in his life had been nothing but one night stands, and to him they'd only been bodies that brought him pleasure. But Tyler was different. She was there all of the time, and she was the only one he ever fucked anymore. But she was enough. And she was so much more than a body that brought him pleasure. She was a personality and a smile and big brown eyes and a laugh that he didn't hear often enough. She was more than skin and tits and an ass and a female creature he could have sex with. She was dark eyebrows and dirty-blonde hair that she often brushed straight but that curled when it was wet. She was a sprinkle of freckles and smooth, fair skin and the way the corner of her mouth would curve into a crooked smile.

And that scared him. For the first time, the tables had turned. Billy Darley wasn't the one in control, the one who was unafraid and cold and cruel and heartless. No, this time around he was the one who felt like he was powerless to do anything, and he had too many emotions, and it was terrifying. And he didn't dare let Tyler ever get wind of his fear or his confusion. She could never know that he thought of her as more than a slab of meat with a vagina. And she could never know that for several nights now he had lay awake long after she'd gone to sleep, and he'd pondered what life would have been like if he didn't grow up in the inner-city, and if he was her age, and if they'd met at a coffee shop or the gas station that she used to visit. Would they really have been friends? Could she really ever care about someone like him? Of course, in that other universe in his head, he was a completely different person.

It was December twenty-third when Billy brought Tyler lunch and she said his name for the first time. Neither of them had realized it, but she'd always just said "you," when addressing him.

On that day, he'd brought her an apple as he always did, but there was a real treat accompanying it; a blueberry muffin and a strawberry Frappuccino from Starbucks. He'd seen the excited look on her face and said, "Don't feel so special; they're on Christmas special. They cost close to nothing." And then he'd headed for the door.

But just when he had his hand on the doorknob, she'd called him back. And she'd called him by name. "Billy, wait," she'd said, and the sound of his name on her lips had stopped him in his tracks.

When he turned around to look at her, she'd already moved from the bed to his side, and she looked up into his face with the most sincere look of gratitude he'd ever seen her wear before. "Thank you," she'd said. And then she'd put her hands on his shoulders and stood on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek.

It was the first time she'd spoken his name in his presence, and it was the first time she'd ever made a move to even touch him when it wasn't dark out and they weren't naked. Billy hadn't said a word in response to her thanks, just looked at her for a moment before he left. She had kissed him—granted, kissed him on the cheek, but still kissed him—willingly, and she didn't use the back of her hand to wipe her mouth when she leaned away from him. He hadn't ordered or forced her to do anything, and she'd acted of her own accord.

She had no idea the true effect it had on him, and he never knew that after he left she went and sat on the bed, wondering what had sprung up in her to do such a thing. But even as she sat there in confusion with a blueberry muffin in her hands, a crooked smile had formed itself on her lips.

Christmas came, and she spent the entire day thinking about her family, hoping that they were all home and safe on the ranch for the holidays, and praying that they would enjoy themselves and not think about her. But of course she knew that they would be thinking of her. It had been exactly twenty-five days since she disappeared. They probably thought that she was dead.

And Billy had been gone all day. He came back late at night, long after the sun had set. She had been standing by the window and waiting for him to come back, wondering when he would return. But when he did, she watched him close and lock the door behind him. As always, he stripped as he walked from the door to the bed, and by the time he reached the bed and slid under the sheets he was in his underwear.

She would never have admitted it, not even to herself, but she'd been looking forward to sex that night. Anything to take her mind off of her family for a while. But when he got into bed and patted the place beside him, he lay back and stared at the ceiling, seeming disinterested in her for once. She shut the window and closed the curtains before walking over and sliding under the blanket with him. She scooted over until she was against him, and then she sat up and looked down at him, waiting for him to sit suddenly and pin her down. But he didn't move, and he didn't look at her. His thoughts were far away.

"Merry fuckin' Christmas," he said at last, making her jump.

She just sat there in the dark, staring at him. But he continued to just lay there. So she lay down and waited for him to pull her against him, even if he wasn't going to use her body that night. Only, he didn't do anything. He didn't move. He didn't go to sleep. And without him pulling her to him, she turned on her side and tried to fall asleep. But she couldn't; she realized that she had grown accustomed to falling asleep in his arms after having sex with him. The sex she could easily forgo, but she felt alone and cold without his arm hooked around her waist.

"Merry Christmas," she whispered without feeling. She realized that he must be giving her the day off because it was a holiday. And on the one day when she _wanted_ him to hold her.

January came and went, and so did February and March. It was April ninth. Tyler thought of her family less and less because she forced herself to think of other things. But she still remembered exactly what everyone had looked like the last time she'd seen them. Of course, she knew that her little brothers would have changed in the few months she'd been gone because they were always growing. And she didn't doubt that new grey streaks had found their way into her mom's hair. Her dad was bald, but he probably looked older, too. If not because he was aging, then because his daughter was missing.

She often wondered how long police would look for someone when they had no leads. Had they stopped looking for her? Had they told her parents that she was probably dead, or that if she was alive she was as good as six feet under? If they had, what had her parents told her brothers? How had they taken it?

Today Billy came home late but looking pleased. When she'd asked what he was so happy about, he'd grinned and said that now his brother was a man. Now his brother was part of the gang.

"Oh," she'd said, processing the new information. "I didn't know you had a brother."

He had been in her face in an instant, slamming her back against the wall and leaning in close. "What, so I'm not allowed to have a family?" he'd growled through his teeth.

Tyler trembled at his power and anger, but she said calmly, "I never said that. I was just surprised because you never talked about having any family."

He narrowed his eyes, but relinquished his hold on her so she could breathe again and he wasn't crushing her against the wall.

"What's his name?" she asked quietly, after a moment of pondering.

He had released her and turned away, but he looked back at her. "Joe," he said.

"How old is he?" she asked.

He had her against the wall again in another instant. "Why the sudden interest in my baby brother?" he hissed.

She never let her gaze waver from his face, and she said quietly, "I'm not interested in your brother. I was just curious; how old are people usually when they enter gangs? Are they Joe's age? Older? Younger? How old is he?" she finished by repeating her earlier question.

He leaned back, loosening his grip on her shoulders. "You're actually fucking curious about this fuckin' stuff," he said. It wasn't a question.

She shrugged and said, "Yeah."

He frowned at her, but he said, "Joe's twenty. And there isn't a certain age; you get in whenever the fuck you get in."

She nodded. "Okay."

But he wasn't finished. He continued, "You get in when you got the balls for the initiation."

Tyler swallowed and licked her lips, a bit fearful of what she was about to learn, if Billy would tell her. "What happens at an initiation?" she asked.

He laughed coldly and said, "The cops call 'em 'initiation killings.'"

She resisted the urge to let her hand fly to her mouth. "Oh," she said. But she wasn't finished, either. "Do you have particular targets, or is it kind of like you choose whoever you come across at the time? Do you have to kill more than one person?"

His frown deepened. "You really wanna know this shit?" he asked.

She nodded. So he went on.

"No special target. We go out at night, around midnight. Find someone at a gas station with no fucking camera or something like that. And it's just one person to get in. But you make fuckin' shit-head enemies as soon as you associate yourself with a certain fucking group of people. So you gotta gank the motherfuckers before they gank you."

She nodded again. "How old were you?" she asked quietly after a moment's silence.

He raised an eyebrow, but he didn't look angry with her for asking. "Nineteen," he said.

She licked her lips again. "You've lasted four years," she said, and there was respect and awe in her voice. Billy watched her, waiting for a sarcastic comment or remark that would tell him she was messing with him, but it didn't come because she wasn't.

Two weeks later things had settled down again. But on April twenty-third Billy didn't come back to their room. She waited until nine o'clock for him to burst in, but he never did. So she got into bed, not bothering to undress, intending to get a bit of sleep before he came back. But she couldn't sleep, and she ended up tossing and turning, trying to find a comfortable position. And Billy still hadn't returned. She fell asleep sometime late into the night, waking early in the morning and making the bed when she found that he still wasn't back.

She waited, and at two o'clock in the afternoon he finally returned. He tossed her a bag of lunch, looking disgusted and furious about something or other. She was quite sure he wasn't angry with her, but she didn't say anything and tried not to even look at him, lest she catch his eye and he get annoyed with her for it for some reason.

He stormed right back out, slamming the door behind him. She breathed a sigh of relief when he had gone, but realized that it wasn't because he had left without any interaction between them, but because he had been in one piece. She'd feared that he'd been killed or hurt the night before, and that he stayed away because he was dead or couldn't make it home.

Home. That was the first time she'd dared to think of his room as that. She'd finally started thinking of this place as _their_ room rather than just _his_, but she'd never thought of it as home. But she was suddenly wishing he would come home. Home was the word ringing in her mind and she couldn't deny that if she was going to live there for the rest of her life, she would have to start calling it home sometime or other.

She sat down on the bed to eat her lunch, wondering what was bothering Billy so much and hoping that his life wasn't in danger. But, knowing what he did and how he survived and what he was involved in, she knew that it was a petty hope. But hope she did, prayed, even, that he didn't have someone who was angry enough at him to try to kill him. Try to kill him. Funny, how she automatically thought of him as the one between the two of them—whoever the other was—who would survive. She had worried for his life the night before, but now she subconsciously believed that he would kill whoever threatened him. And his life might not even be in intense danger at the moment; he could just be pissed at someone who he couldn't kill because they were in his gang or god forbid, someone he cared about.

But she had no idea that this was only the beginning.

Billy walked into the meth lab. He was pissed at the old man, but it didn't dampen his spirits; Joe was a man now and the entire gang was going on a big run that night. He swaggered into the lab, holding the now-empty leather sack in his hands. But all of them were sitting and standing around, looking grim.

"What?" he asked. What the fuck was wrong with the motherfuckers? There was no answer, so he asked again, this time louder. "What?"

No one answered him. They all just stayed where they were, watching him.

"Somebody fuckin' tell me what the fuck is going on?" he demanded, his voice booming through the large room they were in.

Bodi walked over, looking nervous. He glanced over at the other guys and said, "You hear?"

There was a pause.

Then Bodi went on, "Joe, dude. Somebody stuck 'em. He's dead."

Billy felt a frown crease his brow. "What?" he said, and his voice was so low it was nearly a whisper. He jerked his chin up when he said, louder, "You're lying."

But Bodi shook his head lightly. "Man, he's gone," he said.

Billy glanced at the rest of the guys, one at a time. They just watched him until he turned around and stormed out, hurling his bag against the wall on his way. No one had touched his brother. No one would dare. He stalked out to get the truth somewhere or find Joe.

Later, he walked into the Four Roses just as the gang was raising their glasses in a toast to Joe. "Didn't deserve that," Bodi was saying. "No way he deserved that. He was a true fuckin' soldier." They raised their glasses and he continued, "To Joe. He was a good fuckin' boy. _A good fuckin' boy_!"

They bumped their glasses together, but just as they did, Billy reached them. He grabbed Bodi's glass and slammed it down on the table, causing the beer in it to slosh and spill out of the glass.

The boys all looked up at him.

"So that's what we're gonna do," he said. It wasn't a question. He lifted up the glass and began to pour it onto the floor, and as he poured he said, "Why don't you show a little fuckin' respect, at least. See _that_ is why you guys are nothin'. That is why you are a bunch of fuckin' punks, because you would rather drink up and toke yourselves fuckin' witless. Witless and Scared Shitless!" He was yelling by the end of it. Then he took a deep breath, wiped his nose and said, "Nah, my bad. Let's . . . here, cheers," and he lifted a shot-glass full of alcohol.

The guys just sat there, looking up at him out of the corners of their eyes.

In an instant the smile on Billy's face turned to a furious, raging glare. "GET YOUR FUCKIN' GLASSES UP! ALL OF YOU!" He yelled.

They each reached for a shot-glass and raised it, watching him warily as they did. But as they drank, he clenched his fist and threw his glass across the room. It shattered against the wall with a satisfying sound.

Billy turned around and took a few steps away from the table, taking deep breaths and trying to regain a level head.

Bodi spoke. "Joe just wasn't meant for this shit, that's all," he said.

Billy said nothing.

Bodi went on, "He wasn't like us."

"No, wasn't like you, you mean," Billy exploded. "He was not like you! He was better than you!"

Bodi had looked away when Billy started to speak, but he turned back, raising his eyebrows at the last thing Billy said. Then he started to yell. "We as good as brothers since we was kids, and you fuckin' go this way. What, I'm not as good as you now? Joe was like blood to me, dog. As good as fuckin' blood. You too!"

Billy had felt his blood boiling, but at Bodi's words it began to cool. He nodded, taking another breath and licking his lips. He jerked his chin up in acceptance and then sat down at the table with them. "Well," he said when he had seated himself, "I would like to catch the motherfucker that did this."

Spink leaned forward in his seat. "Oh we will," he said.

Bodi nodded. "Aint no motherfuckin' doubt."

Baggy jerked his chin up in agreement. "Do the right thing by Joe, yeah?"

Billy lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, feeling the smoke cloud his lungs. He breathed out slowly. "So who fuckin' did it?" he asked loudly.

"Wasn't the Cuntymax man I would know about it," Heco said.

Billy nodded sarcastically. "Unless you were high," he said.

"I aint high," Heco growled. He slapped his forearm several times to prove it.

"It wasn't Bee Street Billy," Spink said. "Wasn't The Hall. Wasn't any of those assholes."

But Baggy was the one to speak. "So my sister," he said, "said she saw some fucker in a suit down there. Just chillin'."

Billy nodded, standing up. "How many fuckers in a suit you ever see at Stoker's fuckin home?" He walked over to the counter, snatching a newspaper up and walking back to the table. "See, here's the comical thing," he said between draughts from his cigarette, "When one of us gets killed, we don't make the paper. But the _son_ of a _senior_ _BP_ of _Starfish Capital_? Woo-wee." He held the front page up for the guys to see the pictures. Then he handed the paper to Baggy and said, "Go talk to your sister."

Baggy stood up and walked over to his sister, Angela, who was a waitress at the Four Roses. He pointed to the picture of the father of the kid Joe had killed, right on the front page of the newspaper. She stared at the picture for a moment and then looked up at Baggy. She nodded. He looked to Billy and tilted his head to the side, raising his eyebrows. They had the motherfucker.


	5. Nightmare

Back at the old building that had become both a home and a prison, Tyler was standing at the window, thinking. She watched the clouds and the birds that moved overhead, wondering where Billy was and what he was doing. Eventually she bored of watching things and went to lie down on the bed for a moment. She didn't know when she fell asleep, but she did.

And then she was walking into Joe's gas station. It was just like any other day that she'd come in to chat and buy a pack of gum or a bag of candy. The bell on the door rang when she entered and Joe looked up from behind the front counter. When he saw her, he smiled. "Hey, kid," he said. "How was your day?"

Tyler had shrugged. "It was okay. My lunch got stolen and I didn't have the cash to buy something at the cafeteria, so I chewed my entire pack of gum instead."

"Ah," he said, nodding seriously, "and you always have to have an extra pack on hand."

"Exactly," she'd said, smiling.

Joe knew how much she loved gum, and he knew that she liked to chew mint gum when she was writing, whether for pleasure or for school. In some ways, he was almost like a second father to her. She'd met him and gotten to know him after she and her dad came down to California for the month, but now she couldn't imagine life without him.

She walked to the back of the store, where she knew the candy was stacked on shelves and hanging on wire hooks in neat rows. The gum was toward the end of the aisle, so she headed that way. She had just decided what flavor and brand of gum she wanted and how many packs to buy when the bell on the door rang again and she looked up. Timmy Thompson walked in.

He was only nine, but Tyler had met him at the park one day when she helped him get his dog's leg out of a trap someone had set in the bushes. They had become fast friends, and she often stopped by his house to spend time with him. He was part of a large family with a lot of other children, and his father had just been laid off. His mom was a babysitter, but with all of her own children to take care of she was only able to keep a few customers. As a result, Timmy was often neglected and didn't always know when his next meal would be. Tyler had taken time to be his friend and listen to his problems and what he was feeling, knowing how important it was to him and for him. She was one of the only stable, dependable things in his life, and he was a good friend to her in return.

Timmy finished talking to Joe and saw Tyler peeking over one of the metal dividers between the aisles, and he made a beeline for her. They talked for a few minutes, and as he talked his eyes strayed to the candy on the shelves beside them. He licked his lips, and Tyler noticed the way he eyed a bag of peach-rings that was hanging on a hook nearby. She walked over and grabbed a bag. His eyes widened hopefully when she did so; she sometimes treated him to ice cream or a lunch at McDonalds when they were hanging out. She smiled reassuringly back at him, silently letting him know that the candy was going to be his as soon as she paid for it.

They grinned at each other and started walking towards the end of the aisle. They were moving in the general direction of the front counter, but taking their time. The bell rang, announcing someone's entrance, but it rang more than once, and it sounded like several people had come in. Tyler looked over the shelves to see who it was, and she stopped cold when she saw the men. There were a lot of them, at least five, and they were all wearing dark ski masks and carrying knives or guns, or both. She didn't think, automatically reaching back and stopping Timmy with a gentle-but-firm hand on his shoulder. He didn't know what was happening or who had come in, and he stopped, looking up at her questioningly.

She ducked low enough that the men wouldn't see her over the shelves; she was quite sure that they hadn't seen her so far. Then she lifted a finger and pressed it to her lips, asking Timmy to be quiet. He nodded, and a grin formed itself on his lips. She realized that he must think she knew whoever had come in and was planning on surprising them. How wrong he was. But she didn't have time to think of that now. The men started to yell.

"Open the fucking register, and give us the fucking cash," one of them bellowed.

Timmy turned to look at Tyler in surprise. He looked a bit alarmed, but she shook her head and motioned once more for him to keep quiet. He nodded, though he looked scared, and she pulled him silently to her, curling her arms protectively around him as more yelling went on.

Then it happened. Tyler raised her head to see what was going on and she saw one of the men raise his shotgun. The shot rang out, and though part of her had been expecting it, part of her screamed inside and jolted in shock when she saw Joe's chest explode. Blood splattered across the wall behind him and he fell, dead, to the floor. But she had more than the dead man to worry about; what the shot rang out, Timmy was beyond scared; he screamed. And he screamed long and loud, and Tyler ducked her head before the men saw her, but she knew that they'd heard Timmy. They started yelling again, and she could hear them running for the back of the store.

Instinctively, she grabbed Timmy and pushed him to the ground, laying herself over him in an attempt to shield him from the men who suddenly surrounded them. The men pointed guns and held knives poised, but Tyler refused to move when they demanded it. She had Timmy's head and torso covered by her own, protecting his vitals. But he didn't realize that she was trying to protect him. When she held him down he panicked, and began screaming and trying to squirm out from under her.

"Timmy, no," she'd whispered soothingly, "I'll keep you safe. Just, please, stay still."

But he was beyond reason, mindlessly hollering and trying to break out of her grasp. She did her best to hold him, but he managed to get his head out from under her. The instant there was a clear shot, one of the men shot Timmy in the back of the head. Tyler hadn't been prepared for that, and the blood spattered all over her shirt and arms and across her face. She felt her breath leave her lungs in a _whoosh_.

The men demanded that she release Timmy and get up. But she refused. She clung to Timmy's headless little body, too shocked to move. Joe was dead. Timmy was dead. They were gone, and they weren't ever coming back. Timmy would never get his peach-rings and she would never hear his laugh again. Joe would never make another sale or ask her how her day was ever again. It made her head spin, that she'd spoken to both of them only moments before, both of them perfectly healthy, and that now they were just corpses growing cold on the floor.

But before she could think any more one of the men leaned down and grabbed her, prying Timmy from her grasp and cursing at her for being so stupid. Then he shoved her into the shelves to punish her. She hit the shelves and the metal hooks hard and managed not to get cut, though she was sure that there would be bruises on her arms and across her side and back where she landed on the hard metal. Then the man grabbed her by the arm and jerked her to her feet. She'd dropped her bag and the gum and the candy when she went to shield Timmy from the men.

They dragged her out of the building, and though she kicked and screamed and fought with everything in her, seeing her friends die right in front of her had taken its toll, as had being thrown into the metal shelf. She fought all of the way to the car, but when they pushed her into the back seat and onto some strange man's lap, she quieted down. The men climbed into the car she was in and another that was parked beside it, and then they left Joe's parking lot. Tyler threw all of her attention and energy into watching the men around her and fighting them off when they reached out to touch her. She bit and clawed her way to the floor of the car, where she sat with her knees pulled up to her chest. Then they left her alone for the rest of the ride. She wasn't sure how long they drove, but it was dark outside when they reached an old, abandoned-looking building.

The man who had shot Timmy and pushed her into the shelf grabbed her and directed her into the old building, where she was shoved into a cold shower with her clothes still on. She scrubbed off Timmy's blood and tried to tidy her clothes during the short time she was under the murky water, but soon enough she was pulled out from under the cold stream. A threadbare, old towel was thrown over her shoulders and she was pushed up several flights of stairs. Then they pushed her into a room. A room full of other girls.

Tyler gasped and sat up in bed, sweat beaded on her forehead and upper lip and dripping down her skin. She pulled her knees up and hugged them, rocking back and forth on the mattress. It was still light out, and when she glanced at the clock it said four o'clock. She took a deep breath through her nose and tried to forget about the dream. But she couldn't. And she knew that she couldn't forget it because it wasn't just a nightmare; she'd just relived the day she was taken. And now, five months after it had happened, she still wasn't over Joe and Timmy's deaths and she could still feel the way Timmy's blood had sprayed across her face.

She got up and cleaned up, showering and brushing her teeth as she wondered what kind of mood Billy would be in when he got back. When he returned he seemed to be in two different moods at once. He seemed angry and unhappy but simultaneously satisfied and excited about something or another. Tyler knew better than to ask him about it.

That night he made a rather rough, passionate lover. And when it was late and they were lying together in the dark, she wondered at the strange enjoyment she got whenever she and Billy had sex. At first it had been all wrong that she'd enjoyed it, and she had hated him and herself because she'd liked it. Then she'd gone for a period where she felt nothing emotional. The pleasure was still there, but she refused to acknowledge it for the longest time. Then she came to grips with the situation and decided that if she was going to be having sex with this man for the next few years at least, she might as well let herself enjoy it. Her only problem now was that the sex was getting to her head and she was feeling more and more emotionally attached to Billy, which was the last thing she wanted.

But whether she wanted it or not, it was happening and she had to admit—even if only to herself—that it would lead to nothing but pain and sorrow. But she couldn't stop her heart or turn it back from the direction it had taken. Things had gone too far already, and what had been done she could never undo.


	6. A New Kind of Freedom

Over the next two days, Billy became increasingly edgy and more and more pensive. Tyler wondered what the cause of his strange new behavior was. But she never asked, knowing that if she did he might fly off the handle at her. And the last thing she needed when he was already acting strange was for him to be angry with her. So even though he was always in her business she kept well out of his.

On May tenth things changed drastically. Tyler was doing pushups in the middle of the room when Billy burst in. He was breathing hard and holding a gun. She stood up, watching as he checked the cartridge. Empty. Out of ammo? Why the hell had he come back? She was pretty sure he didn't keep any weapons in the room where she stayed day and night and could snoop around. And she must have been right, because he didn't look too hopeful. It looked like he'd been running. He walked up to her suddenly, tossing the gun to the ground so that it slid under the bed and out of sight.

He leaned in close and his breath was hot on her face. He smelled of cigarettes and mint, as he always did, but Tyler had grown so accustomed to it that she didn't even notice. "When that motherfucker comes in through that door," he said between deep breaths, "You play innocent and send him in." Then he looked away and said, "Once he's done his work you go with him. You hear?"

About a million questions filled her fit to burst, but she only nodded once. What the hell was he talking about? She watched as he walked quickly to the closet and stepped inside, closing and locking the door behind him.

Something inside of Tyler twisted when she realized that Billy was setting her free. But why? What on earth had possessed him to hide in the closet and let her leave with whoever was about to come through the door?

But her thoughts were interrupted; someone was running up the hallway, and they were running fast. She backed up instinctively as she realized that Billy hadn't locked the door behind him when he closed it after entered. Her back hit the wall beside the window and she stared at the door. She was terrified, but she took a deep breath through her nose, exhaling through her mouth a moment later, and forced a calm, surprised-but-collected expression onto her face.

Then someone kicked the door open and a man dressed in black clothes and leather high school-looking jacket stepped inside, wielding a pistol. He pointed it at her for a moment, and she realized that he only lowered it when he saw that she wasn't Billy. But he was still holding it at the ready. "Where the fuck is the bastard?" He asked.

Tyler shook her head, putting on her most convincing expression of confusion. "Who?" she asked.

The man narrowed his eyes suspiciously at her for a moment, and then his expression became something completely new. "I know you," he said.

She frowned. "I don't know you . . ." she started to say.

But he shook his head. "You wouldn't," he said. "I know you from the newspapers."

Tyler felt her heart begin to pound. This man looked like a gangster. He looked rougher than Billy or any of the guys she'd ever seen at this end of the sewer. She tilted her head to the side, genuinely confused and curious.

"Tyler Williamson," he said.

He knew her name. Her full name. This man couldn't be a gangster. Why would he pay any attention to a missing person in the news if he was?

She nodded.

He looked around the room and changed the subject abruptly. "Who lives her with you?" he asked. "Who's keeping you here?"

Tyler swallowed. "Billy," she said, "Billy Darley."

The man's face hardened when she said Billy's name. "You know where he is?" he asked. "I chased him back here."

It was then that she realized what Billy had meant. And she realized that his life, Billy's life, was in her hands. She could give him away now, put him in the gun-filled hands of this strange new man, or she could choose to spare him. His life and his fate were in her hands for once. She made a face of surprise. "He's back?" she asked. "I haven't seen him in two days."

The man looked at her carefully, but he didn't lift his gun to point it at her. "You aren't lying, are you?" he asked. He looked like he was debating whether or not to kill her.

She let out a bark-like laugh. "Lying? Mister," she said, "I've lied before, I'll give you that. But lie to someone who's after Billy Darley? Do you know what that son of bitch has done to me?" She laughed again, humorlessly.

He nodded. "Alright," he said. "You're right; I'm after Billy. And once I've got him, I'll come back and get you and take you to the police so you can get back to your family."

Tyler put on a half-smile. "Thanks," she said, breathing the word out like a sigh.

He nodded and was turned halfway round to walk out the still-open door when a gunshot rang out and he fell to the ground, dead, with a bullet in his skull.

Tyler's hand flew to her mouth, but she didn't scream. She just stared numbly at the dead person lying on the floor a few feet in front of her and tried not to think about the last time she'd been close to someone when they died. She'd just watched someone else get killed.

But her attention left the dead man when she noticed the tattooed man standing in the hallway beyond the door. He his gun still held ready. "You were gonna sell out Billy," he said.

He was African-American, with dark skin and dark hair, and even darker eyes. And those eyes regarded her with cold hatred. She'd never seen this man before. She didn't know his name. Was he a member of Billy's gang? It seemed likely, considering how furious he seemed that she had spoken about Billy in such a way.

Part of her wanted to scream in terror. Part of her wanted to stay strong and silent until it was over and everything faded to black. But instead she just stood there, frozen in fear and relief. Two completely different, warring emotions. But both of them washed over her like a flood. She wasn't done feeling relieved that the immediate threat of the strange gang-looking man who had been after Billy was dead. But now there was a new threat, and a new reason to be afraid.

Just when the man cocked his gun and was ready to point it at her, Billy unlocked the closet door and burst out of it. He saw Tyler standing there, straight, with her head held high. Then he looked at the dead man. And then he saw the man in the hallway.

"The fuck do you think you're doing?" Billy demanded.

Tyler almost couldn't believe what she was seeing when Billy stepped in front of her, facing the man in the hall. "Bodi," he said, his voice low but somehow amiable. "Don't shoot my girl."

Tyler had never been so happy to see Billy as she was in that moment when he came out of the closet and stepped in front of her. And she realized that he was protecting her. And he was claiming her as his. Of course, she'd been his for nearly half a year, but this was the first time she'd heard him say it to anyone else. And he'd called her _his girl_.

The man in the hallway—Bodi, as Billy had called him—lowered his gun and asked, "What the fuck, man? You hear what this bitch said about you?"

Tyler didn't even flinch at what he called her. She'd grown up around farmers who didn't say much worse than _crap_ or the occasional _shit_, but she'd been back in California and around Billy enough that swearing didn't bring any reaction in her at all.

She had been leaning over so that she could see Bodi, but she looked at the back of Billy's head when he spoke. "This _bitch_," he said, sounding annoyed, "just saved my fuckin' life by saying what she did. Why don't you show a little fucking respect to the person who fought off Hume without a gun and saved me. More than you could do with a gun and your _freedom_."

Bodi licked his lips. Then he lowered his gun and tucked it into the waistband of his pants. "My bad, man," he said. "My bad. Now chill the fuck out, okay?"

Billy stepped aside so that Tyler was in clear view of Bodi, and he was standing straight in front of her, not more than three yards away.

Bodi's eyes never left her, but he addressed Billy. "Can I meet the crazy bitch that saved your ass, then?"

Tyler had been holding Bodi's gaze evenly and without flinching, but she glanced at Billy to see what he would say. He stared at Bodi, and his face was hard. "Show some respect, I said. She has a fucking name."

Tyler looked back to Bodi. But his eyes were on Billy. "What's her name then?"

"What don't you ask her?" Billy suggested coldly.

Bodi returned his gaze to Tyler and raised his eyebrows.

"Tyler," she said, quietly but loud enough that it easily made it to Billy and Bodi's ears. And though it was quiet, the one word was firm. It was just as she'd spoken when Billy first asked her name.

Bodi nodded. "Pleasure to finally fuckin' meet you," he said.

"Finally?" she asked, cocking an eyebrow at him.

He laughed. "Finally," he said. "Billy's talked about you several times. The other guys and I were starting to think there wasn't really any beautiful young girl he kept in his room and that he was lying."

"Hmm," was all Tyler said.

"Well," Bodi said, ignoring her lack of response, "Hume's dead." He took a step forward and kicked the dead man's leg, reminding Tyler that she was in the presence of someone who was no longer living. "What the fuck are we gonna do to celebrate?"

Tyler glanced at Billy and was surprised to find that he was looking at her.

"We go to the Four Roses," he said, never letting his gaze waver from hers. Then he nodded to her and said to Bodi, still without looking at him, "We'll be there in an hour. Get the guys together. And get this fucking body out of my fucking sight."

Tyler didn't know what Billy was thinking, but she stared right back at him, even when Bodi dragged Hume—whoever he was—out of the room and closed the door behind him. After the door was closed Billy stopped staring and turned toward it. He walked to it and locked it. Then he moved to the desk and pulled a key ring from his belt, unlocking one of the drawers.

As he dug through it with his back turned to her, he asked, "Why the fuck did you save me, anyways?"

Tyler frowned at him but said nothing. After a moment she said, "I didn't really . . . I mean, all I did was-"

But Billy was done looking through the drawer and he turned, moving closer to her until her back was against the wall. He had one hand on the wall next to her head and he leaned close. "I don't care what you did," he said. "I just wanna know why you did it."

She stared at him for a moment. Then she decided what she would say. "I did it because . . ." she paused, "because even though you're an asshole and every fiber in my being tells me that I should hate you . . . even though in some ways, I _do_ hate you and I know you could care less about me . . . I care about you, Billy Darley. And no matter how much I want to hate your stupid guts for everything you've put me through, including today, I can't. That's why."

He listened in silence and when she had finished, he leaned forward. "You care," he breathed.

She shrugged, coming up with a smart remark. "Well," she said, raising an eyebrow, "That, and now everyone will know that I held the _great_ Billy Darley's life in the palm of my hand. And they'll know that I could have crushed that life like it was nothing, but I decided not to."

A grin spread across his face as she spoke. "They'll never know if I decide I don't want them to," he said. Now his forehead was against hers and the tips of their noses were touching. Their mouths were so close Tyler could feel the vibrations of his voice on her lips.

But she didn't let herself get distracted by the perfect curve of his lips or the glint of his white teeth or the devilish look in his eyes or the smoldering expression on his face that made her want to melt into his arms and bend to his will. Instead, she said, "Oh, but you'll want them to know. You'll want everyone to know that you have a pretty little girl who is so loyal that she didn't give you up or hand you over, even when freedom was staring her in the face."

His grin widened. "Oh, but sweetheart," he said, reaching up to brush her cheek with the back of his fingers, "When you chose me over freedom, you opened a door to some freedom of a new kind."

"Really," she said, sounding unimpressed. "What kind of freedom?"

His grin faded and turned, leaning in until his lips brushed her ear. "You saved my life, sweetheart," he said. "I think I'll run it by my boys, but I'm the one in charge. You're gonna be part of our little gang and you're gonna learn how to live at my end of the sewer. I'll watch you carefully, but after today, even if you had the chance, I don't think you'd leave me. You aren't gonna run away or try to find your way home. No. You're curious and you care, and that'll be enough to keep you here. You don't have the will to walk away."

Tyler felt her heartbeat quicken, but it wasn't in fear. It was because she knew, deep down inside, that he was right. She couldn't leave now, not when he was going to introduce her to the rest of the gang and show her how he survived. _I'm just getting more information to share with the cops_, she thought to herself. But she knew she was lying to herself. It was just an excuse for staying with Billy. She'd never done drugs, but she imagined that this must be what it was like to be addicted to them; wanting to leave them and stop having anything to do with them and simultaneously never being able to have enough of them. So that was it. Billy Darley was her drug.

He leaned back enough to press his forehead to hers again and then he leaned in and kissed her. It was long, drawn out, and deep. And she let her arms find their way around his neck and she let her tongue find its way into his mouth and she didn't flinch or tense at all when he reached around to grab her butt. And she didn't wait for him to pull her in; she took that step and moved against him before he could even think of it. He smiled into her lips and said between sloppy kisses, "We'd better hurry, sweetheart; I know you'll want to shower so you don't smell like sex when you meet the guys."

And she smiled with him, because he was right.


	7. The Boys

Forty-five minutes later she was showered and had brushed her teeth, and she looked and smelled damn good. And she knew it.

"Now," Billy said as he put on his clothes, "You meet them tonight, but your initiation won't be for a while. I gotta teach you how to shoot and you need at least some ink in your skin before you can join. But we'll worry about that later."

Tyler took a deep breath as she handed him his jacket and watched him put it on. They had showered together and it seemed to have only strengthened her addiction to him.

She had spent the last five months in shorts and t-shirts, occasionally exchanged for pants and t-shirts. Billy had taken their laundry to wash once a week. But today he'd dug around in the bag and tossed a wad of clothes to her. And now she was dressed in dark blue skinny jeans which were tucked into lace-up boots. Above that she wore a simple black long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves pushed up to her elbows. When she was dressed and admiring herself in the bathroom mirror from afar, Billy walked up behind her.

She closed her eyes when he leaned down and whispered in her ear. "I stole this a while back. Thought I'd pawn it, but now I've thought better." And she felt his arms on either side of her head. She opened her eyes and looked in the mirror, and he was putting a necklace around her neck. On an elegant gold chain hung a small golden charm that was made up of several small curls of flames exactly like Billy's tattoos. The curls were engraved and painted with black ink, making them stand out.

Billy let her look at it and then let it fall down her chest and under the neckline of her shirt. Then he stood behind her and they looked at themselves in the mirror. Billy had given her a bag of makeup he'd recently purchased—she hadn't hidden her amazement that he'd actually paid for something for once, and _makeup_ of all things—and she was wearing mascara and dark eyeliner. A bit of dark eye shadow and some clear lip gloss added to the look and she had to admit; she and Billy made one stunning pair. He looked as handsome as he did threatening, and she looked as beautiful as she did dangerous.

Tyler had left her hair down, as there was a breeze coming through the window and the sun was beginning to set. She took a deep breath when Billy opened the door and took a step aside, letting her walk out of the room first. Now would be the perfect time to bolt, when he had his back turned and was locking the door behind him. She didn't quite remember how many flights of stairs she needed to run down before she reached the ground level, but it didn't matter; her feet wouldn't have taken her away from Billy if she'd asked them to. And she didn't.

She waited until he'd locked the door and then he straightened, hooking his key ring back into his belt and glancing at her. Then they walked, side by side, down the stairs and out of the building. Tyler slid into the shotgun seat as Billy started the car, and they peeled out of the drive. She went to put her seatbelt on, but he stopped her and shook his head. "Tinted windows," he said. "The cops can't see a thing in here."

"I was actually worried about my safety, not my status with the police."

He only laughed. "Laws don't apply to you now, sweetheart," he said. "And I'm not about to fucking crash this car. Did you fuckin' see the paint job?"

She sighed, but a smile made the corners of her mouth twitch.

She memorized the route Billy took to get from their room to the Four Roses bar. When they parked and Billy got out, Tyler stepped out of the car and looked around. There were some people around outside, though very few. And most of them weren't just hanging around. The two women she did see made her feel less self-conscious; they were dressed quite like her and their makeup was similar. But it was more than their dress; she wondered how old the women were. She knew she looked at least eighteen with the clothes and the makeup, and she also knew that she looked nothing like the simple, law-abiding, all-American girl her parents and the cops would be looking for.

They walked in and she was unsurprised by the hazy, smoky atmosphere inside. She kept close to Billy's side, but not so close that it was obvious that she was nervous and out of her comfort zone. In fact, she walked confidently and with her head held high, and it looked like she was with Billy but not like she was following him around. They walked along a wall that was mirrored from about her waist up, and Billy watched her in it and grinned.

She raised an eyebrow in return before the mirror ended and they walked past the bar. The guy behind it glanced up at Billy, and his eyes lingered momentarily on Tyler, but then his attention turned elsewhere. She followed Billy only a bit farther and there they were; eight guys seated at a table. There were beers and shots in front of all of them. Tyler vaguely recognized the music playing in the background, but was unsure of where she'd heard it before. It set a different kind of mood, but one that she could easily slip into.

All of the guys at the table looked up when Tyler and Billy walked up, though their eyes slid quickly over Billy and came to rest on her. They looked her up and down, all of them, even Bodi. She saw a couple of them glance at Billy and jerk their chins up or nod, and she assumed that they were congratulating him on being able to call her his.

Billy took a seat, and Tyler sat down beside him. She was between him and Bodi. He turned to look at her, and then looked around at each of the men in turn. "This," he said, smirking, "is Tyler."

Then he went around the table, pointing at each of the guys as he said their name. "Spink, Baggy, Ash, Kenny, Heco, Jake, Aggie, and Bodi."

The guys all nodded at her, and she look them each over as Billy introduced them. All of them were tatted up and only Baggy had facial hair besides Billy. Some of them had shaved their heads, and some of them had hair. All of them looked murderous, and at the same time, she got the feeling that they would be more viciously loyal than her own family if they decided to let her join them.

"What do you think about lettin' her in?" Billy asked. Then turned around and signaled the waitress to come over. "Angela," he hollered.

Angela came over to the table and looked expectantly at Billy. All of the others at the table already had drinks already. He glanced at her and then looked beside him at Tyler. Then, his eyes never leaving her, he said, "Two beers and two shots of whiskey."

She nodded and walked off.

Tyler licked her lips. She'd never had anything more than a sip of her father's alcoholic beverages. She didn't know what would happen if she drank a whole beer. Would she get drunk? Would she be able to stomach it? She'd never had a weak stomach and she'd always been a fighter. But alcohol might be a bit of a different story.

The guys had been talking among themselves as she thought and as Billy ordered more drinks, but now they became silent and turned to look at Billy. Tyler breathed in deeply through her nose, barely even noticing when she breathed in some of the smoke that Billy had just exhaled. He stuck his cigarette in his mouth and looked at the guys. "Well?" he asked around the cigarette.

Tyler looked around, focusing on one man at a time.

All of them were silent, looking between her and Billy. At last, Baggy said, "That's fuckin' somethin' to ask, man. I mean, we don't even fucking know this chick. She could just be getting in to learn more and rat us out to the cops. I mean; you give her too much freedom and she's probably gonna run away go straight to the fuckin' police-"

"She won't leave," Billy said. "And I aint askin' you to just welcome her in with open arms. There's an entrance fee. This aint no fucking exception."

They guys exchanged glances, but all of them seemed more interested and for it when Billy said what he did.

"Same as always?" Spink asked. "I mean, she-" he jerked his head toward Tyler "-don't look like no motherfuckin' killer, man.

Billy laughed, but it was cold and chilling. "You don't think she has it in her?"

Spink shrugged.

Billy looked mad, but he said nothing for a moment. Then he turned to Bodi and said, "Tell 'em what she did today."

Bodi looked at Billy for a long moment and then turned to the rest of the guys. "She talked to that motherfucker that killed Joe. She had him wrapped around her little fingers and he had no idea she was protecting Billy. This motherfucking girl right here," he turned and nodded at Tyler, a grin forming on his face, "this girl hardly even flinched when I popped that motherfucker. She didn't cry or nothin'. Just looked at him for a minute and then looked up at me. And when I got all pissed with her for sayin' what she did about Billy 'cause I didn't know he was there and she was protectin' him, she didn't even look scared. I had a gun pointed at her and I was gonna kill her and she didn't cry or flinch or even tense up. She just stared at me with this look like she wasn't afraid. This, this right here is one motherfucking hardcore chick."

The guys exchanged looks again, and a few of them began muttering to each other, but silence fell soon enough. Then they all nodded to each other. "She'll be fuckin' useful, man," Baggy said. "Fuckin' useful as hell. And she seems like a pretty real chick. I say she's in. For the price, o' course, but still in."

The other guys all nodded. Just then Angela came back with the two beers and the shots. She set one of each in front of Billy and did the same for Tyler. Tyler looked at Billy when he lifted his shot glass. He glanced at her and raised his eyebrows, his eyes darting suggestively towards her own shot glass and then back to her face. The rest of the guys lifted their shots, and Tyler looked around at them before lifting her own.

"To the soon-to-be newest member," Billy said as he raised his. They all nodded.

Then everyone stood up and clinked their glasses together, and the drinking began. Tyler watched Bodi and Ash down their shots quickly, and she looked at her own glass. She stared at it only a moment before tipping her head back and dumping the glass-full into her mouth, and she swallowed immediately. Then she licked her lips, liking the burning taste of whiskey on her tongue.

She glanced at Billy as they all sat down and realized that he'd been watching her. They all had, actually, and they were all nodding at her, impressed. But Billy looked proud. He smirked at her and grabbed his beer. The other guys started drinking as they talked, but they didn't take sips; they gulped. Tyler, however, sipped her beer. She didn't sip it like a sissy, or like a proper lady, either. But she looked like a proper lady when she was surrounded by these men.

"So," Kenny said after a moment, "You got any ink in that pretty skin of yours?"

Tyler shook her head. She realized at this point that she had acted, but not spoken, in front of any of the men but Bodi so far. And to Bodi she had only said her own name.

"You know how to talk, right?" Baggy asked. "Know how to use those lips for something other than pleasing Billy?"

She expected herself to blush, but she didn't.

"Fuck you," she and Billy said simultaneously and with humor in their voices. Then they looked at each other in surprise.

The guys started laughing and Ash said, "Well, she knows how to swear."

But Kenny wasn't finished. "When's she gonna get inked, Billy?" he asked.

They all looked at Billy, including Tyler.

He glanced at her and then around the table. He gulped some beer before he said, "We don't got anything goin' on tomorrow, do we?"

"A group event?" Spink asked, looking pleased.

"Why the hell not?" Billy said, shrugging and nodding. "It'll be part of her initiation." Then he grinned at everyone and said, "Bets on whether or not she'll cry?"

"I'll bet she whimpers," Bodi said.

"I say she won't even squeak," Baggy said, "but a couple o' tears'll leak out.

"I say she'll bawl her eyes out," said Spink.

Billy laughed coldly. "And I'll bet she doesn't make a sound unless it's to tell you motherfuckers to fuck off."

"Or to tell the artist that he's not doing his job because she doesn't feel fuckin' anything," Ash added.

They all laughed.

Tyler shrugged, but she made a face that said any of their bets was a possibility.

"So, when you gonna teach her to shoot?" Kenny asked.

Billy turned and looked at Tyler, but he was thinking and wasn't really focusing on her.

But she didn't let him even open his mouth to answer Kenny. "Teach me?" she asked, amused, "I already know. Put any gun in my hands and I guarantee I'll hit the target dead-center every time."

The guys looked around at each other while Billy looked at Tyler.

"Any gun?" Aggie asked, looking doubtful.

Tyler downed another sip of beer and said, "Any gun."

"Where'd you learn to shoot?" Jake asked. He seemed interested in her story, which made her both nervous and interested in telling him.

"I grew up on a cattle ranch," she said after debating whether or not to share that piece of her history. "My dad and brother always went hunting, but we all knew how to shoot and I went hunting with my dad a couple of times." She shrugged. "I can handle a crossbow, handgun, rifle, shotgun . . . but shotguns are by far my favorite and bring out my best performance."

The guys raised their eyebrows, but looked impressed.

"You know what, Billy," Heco said after a minute, "At first I was a little unsure, but now, fuckin' now, now I know you done good. You got yourself one motherfucking hardcore girl." Then Heco looked to Tyler and asked, "What you gonna get a tat of?"

She took another sip of beer and then stared down into it. A million things she'd thought of getting tattooed onto her body before popped into her head, but she knew that this tattoo wasn't going to be a sentimental one. No, it was going to be something drastic and big, something that marked her entrance into the gang. She shook her head. "I don't know. Suggestions?"

Heco grinned. "I got a few."

But Billy cut in before Heco could elaborate or share any of his thoughts. "I have a suggestion," he said. But the way he said it made it sound like he wanted her to get something. She knew she had a choice in the matter, but only if she could get the rest of the guys on her side. But she might not be that opposed to Billy's suggestion, so she nodded and waited for him to go on.

"Wings," he said.

Wings? How big were these wings? Where would they go? Did he mean a small pair on her ankle or was he talking full on, stretching across her back and the backs of her arms? She looked at him. "What kind of wings?" she asked.

"Angel wings," he said.

"Where?" she asked.

"Your back," he said.

"How big?"

"Big."

"Stretching across my arms, too?"

"No. Just your back."

Tyler nodded. "It's an idea."

He laughed and nodded in return. "You go ahead and pick whatever the hell you want. Like I said before, it was just a suggestion."

She nodded again. Then she looked to Heco. But he was busy talking to Baggy. "Heco," she said, and he turned to look at her, grinning when she said his name. "Suggestions?" she asked.

He looked around at the rest of them. "We all got flames when we got in. Why not get some of those?"

Tyler shrugged. Then she said, "You said I'd be useful. Is that because I could look pretty and innocent and catch them off guard?"

Heco nodded. "Exactly."

Tyler nodded. "It's going to be harder to come off as innocent and sweet with curls of flame wrapping around my arms and neck," she said.

Heco inclined his head.

"She's right," Baggy broke in. "And she can't just go walking around with long sleeves on all of the time, either."

"Other suggestions?" Tyler asked, looking around the table.

Bodi jerked his chin at her and she looked at him expectantly. "Your last name or your initials," he said.

Tyler nodded. "Clever," she said, "but I might not always have this last name."

He nodded, agreeing with her. "Unlikely that you'll marry Billy," he said.

And that was the moment when she realized that she was no longer Billy's property; she was his girl. And the guys saw her that way. They didn't see her as a piece of female meat Billy had purchased. No, they saw her as his girlfriend. And he apparently saw her that way too. She'd always promised herself that she would only date a guy if she was genuinely interested in spending the rest of her life with him. She'd never thought about spending her life with Billy; she'd always thought that she was his property and he'd only keep her for ten more years or about that many, until she started to get older and was no longer in the prime of her youth. Then she'd thought that he would get rid of her. But now there was the quite possible future of spending the rest of her life with Billy Darley, however long that life might be. She was joining a gang and moving into a dangerous line of work—though she and Billy hadn't discussed that topic yet—and she couldn't know that she'd even have ten more years on the earth. So why not spend it with the man who was her drug?

"Unlikely though it may be," she said, realizing how poetic she sounded compared to their rough, course speech, "I don't think I want to tattoo my parents' name on my skin just yet."

The guys nodded. "Understandable," Aggie said. Then he asked, "You got any nicknames?"

He glanced at Billy as he asked, as if Billy could supply some of the ones he had given her. But Billy only said, "All I've ever called her is 'sweetheart' and that was really just to get on her nerves in the beginning."

The guys looked to Tyler. She thought back to the day when Billy had dragged her out to his car to listen to the radio, where she had been mentioned on the news. Her dad had spoken directly to her, and he'd called her "Punkin." It was an old nickname he'd been using for her since as far back as she could remember, but she didn't know that she wanted a reminder of her father on her body every day for the rest of her life.

"She doesn't have to have flames or anything," Billy said. "She's gonna be one of us, but she's a woman; she's gotta be a little fuckin' different, you know?"

The guys all nodded.

Tyler shrugged. "Wings, then?" she asked.

They all looked to her. It was up to her whether she chose wings or not, but if she wanted something else then she needed to think of it before tomorrow when they took her to get it inked. She shrugged. "I'll think about it and let you know tomorrow," she said.

They nodded.

They talked late into the night, and at one point Billy turned to Tyler and asked with a smirk, "You still pissed at me for threatening your daddy?"

She smiled, but her words were hard and cold as ice. "As long as your threat still stands, so does mine."

Heco laughed and waved his hands in the air. "Wait, wait," he said, looking amused. "What was Billy's threat to your daddy?"

Tyler looked at Billy pointedly, giving him the spotlight.

He took a swig of beer and then said, "You bastards wouldn't know it, but Tyler was mentioned on the radio a while back. She made the fuckin' news. _Daddy_ came on and when he was asked what he'd say if she was listening, he said that he'd find her and that she should be strong. Then he said, 'to whoever has her, you son of a bitch, I'll find you. I'll find you.'" Billy grinned. "I told her that if her daddy ever came looking for her and I got a hold of him, I'd bring him back and kill him while she watched."

The guys all laughed or nodded. But Heco only grinned and looked at Tyler. "What the fuck was your response?" he asked.

Tyler took a sip of her beer—she was now halfway through her second and still perfectly sober—and tilted her head to the side before she answered. She looked at Billy as she spoke, and her expression was joking but still spoke of seriousness and danger. "I told him that if he laid a finger on my father, I'd rip him apart with my bare hands."

The guys laughed, but they didn't look like they doubted her word.

"Obviously," Ash said after a moment, "your experience with your daddy is a lot different than what we've had with all of ours."

"Daddy's girl," Jake said.

The way he said it made it sound like an insult, but Tyler refused to take it that way. She shrugged and tilted her head to the side, raising her eyebrows. "So loving and respecting the man who raised me and taught me and protected me selflessly for sixteen years makes me weak? How is my affection and protective instincts towards him any different than how you guys feel about each other? You're as good as brothers, aren't you? As good as blood? How is that stronger or better than what I have with my dad?"

They shrugged, nodding.

The conversation carried on for another few minutes, and then they all fell silent.

"Well," Billy said after a while, "I don't know about the rest of you, but I think I need a little fuckin' sleep tonight. Besides," he nudged Tyler, "we got a big day tomorrow."

The guys nodded as they stood.

Tyler rose from her seat, surprised that she had managed to keep from doing anything clumsy so far. Billy stood up before her, but when she was on her feet he stepped up so that he was pressing against her from behind, and he crossed his right arm around her and over her chest so that his hand rested on her left shoulder. He took the cigarette he was smoking out of his mouth for a moment to bury his nose in the hair on the top of her head. Then he lifted his face and rested his chin on the top of her head, grinning at the other guys as they stood up and walked past.

"See you tomorrow, Angel," Baggy said, looking at her from the corners of his eyes as he walked past.

"Angel," Bodi repeated, stopping to stand nearby and look at them. "What you think o' that, Billy?"

Billy shrugged, and his fingers tightened on Tyler's shoulder though he was still being gentle. "She'll be one hell of a dark angel when we're through teaching her," he said, and she could feel him smiling into her hair as he spoke.

The guys laughed as they dispersed.

Billy took his arm from Tyler's chest and his hand from her shoulder and they turned to leave the bar with the guys. Then the two of them got into Billy's car and drove back to the large building where they lived.

When they got inside Billy locked the door behind them and started unbuttoning his pants. "Try to get some sleep," he said. "We're goin' home tomorrow."

"Home?" Tyler asked. "I thought this was home."

Billy shook his head. "Sometimes it is," he said, "but it was really just a place to keep you where you couldn't call for help where anyone would hear you, a place where you couldn't fuckin' escape. I don't think I need to worry about that now."

Tyler shrugged as she kicked off her shoes and slipped out of her pants. Then she got rid of her bra and traded her shirt for one of Billy's. She slid into bed before he did, and he joined her seconds later.

In the dark, nestled in his strong arms, she couldn't help but feel safe, even with the dangerous new way of life that was facing her in the morning. "Where is home, then?" she asked.

"I'll show you tomorrow," he said.

She sighed and pressed her face into his chest, falling asleep moments later.


	8. Angel

The next morning, they packed up their things and left the room. Tyler was wearing just as much makeup as the day before, though today she'd traded the lip gloss for deep red lipstick. They put all of their bags and things in the trunk and drove to an apartment complex. They parked, and Billy refused to let her carry any bags at first, but she punched him in the arm and picked two of them up anyways. She followed him up a flight of stairs and down a narrow hallway between two buildings, and then he stopped, turning to face an ordinary-looking door.

The number 47 was painted in gold on the door, and she noticed that most of the other doors had graffiti on them and on the walls around them, while this door and the wall it was set in were clean. Billy reached up and snatched a key from the top of the door frame, and he unlocked the door. Tyler held her breath as he opened the door, but the sight that met her eyes was far from shocking or frightening.

They walked in and set the bags just inside the door, which Billy closed behind them after placing the key back above the doorframe. Tyler looked around with interest. The door opened into a small living room with two couches and an ancient-looking coffee table. There was also a flat-screen TV mounted in the middle of the wall to their right.

There was a hallway leading away from the living room, but the hall didn't hold Tyler's attention for more than a moment; the living room opened up on her left, right into a small kitchen. Tyler didn't think or look at Billy. She just moved. Moved as quickly as was humanly possible. In an instant she was standing in the middle of the kitchen, spinning around in a slow circle so that she could see everything and take it all in. Then she walked around the room, sliding her hands down the counter and stroking the stove-top and oven with gentle fingers. She had to resist the urge to lovingly embrace the microwave and the refrigerator/freezer.

When she had finished looking around the kitchen and ogling at all of the appliances, she turned around to find Billy standing behind her and watching her with a peculiar look on his face.

"When's the last time you had a home-cooked meal?" she asked.

He frowned. "A while ago," he said, "And it was the worst food I've ever eaten in my entire fucking life."

Tyler frowned right back. "When's the last time you had a _good_ home-cooked meal?"

He laughed. "Never."

"Well," she said, "I hope you don't mind sparing a little cash for some groceries, and-" she wrinkled her nose at the messy, dirty rooms around her "-some cleaning supplies."

Billy narrowed his eyes at her in a frown, but she only shrugged.

"You're the one who wanted to make me part of your gang. If I'm not your slave-girl and I'm your equal, then we're going to need to discuss money. I don't want much, just enough for fresh food and cleaning stuff. And will I earn my own, or will I still depend on you completely?"

Billy seemed amused by her seriousness and the obvious I-mean-business tone of voice she was using, but he also seemed impressed. "Me and the guys are gonna teach you how to fend for yourself and how to get some of your own fuckin' cash. We got an employer who's always happy to have another someone under his command, just as long as they work hard and they don't steal from him."

Tyler nodded. "Then will you lend me some money for groceries and cleaning things? I'll pay you back later."

Billy shook his head, laughing. "Why do you have to pay for stuff that will be cleaning our apartment and feeding us both?"

She shrugged. "Point taken," she said.

"Good," he said. "Now, all you've seen is the living room and the kitchen, and you're way too fuckin' excited about them. Do you even wanna look at the rest of the place?"

Tyler nodded. "Sure," she said, and she danced her way into the living room and down the hall. The first door on the left led to a large bedroom with a queen-size bed and two dressers. There was also a closet in the bedroom. On the other side of the hall was a good-sized bathroom, badly in need of cleaning but still larger and better-looking than the bathroom back at the building where they'd lived for almost six months. At the end of the hall was a linen closet. Tyler opened the closets and cupboards in the bedroom and the bathroom and both of the closets, and then she made her way back to the kitchen. She looked in all of the cupboards and in the fridge and the freezer there, frowning when all she found was a twelve-pack of beer in the refrigerator and some ice-cubes still in their tray in the freezer.

"Mm," she said when she'd finished her survey, "charming." Then she turned to Billy, who was watching her with a bored-but-semi-interested expression on his face. "Tell me," she said, "do you ever eat anything that doesn't come from McDonalds and the Four Roses?"

He snorted. "I've tried Taco John's," he said.

She sighed. "Of course," she said.

But Billy glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall and said, "We gotta go, sweetheart. The guys'll be waiting for us at the ink house."

Tyler nodded. "Let's go, then," she said.

And they left the apartment.

They were in the car and driving when Billy asked, "So, what did you decide on inking into that perfect skin o' yours, hmm?"

"Wings," she said, "Angel wings on my back."

"How big?" he asked.

"Big," she said. "From my shoulder blades to my lower back."

Billy grinned and glanced at her for a moment before returning his eyes to the road. He licked his lips as he looked at her.

They parked in front of a small, dirty-looking building with the words Ink House glowing in big block letters above the door. Tyler took a deep breath and followed Billy through the front door. Billy had been right; the rest of the guys were already inside, leaning against the walls and talking loudly while they waited. All eyes, including those of a ripped guy with sleeve tattoos behind the counter, turned to them when they entered.

"Ah," the guy behind the counter said, "Here she is." Then he nodded to her and winked. "I'm honored to be the first artist to mark your skin. They-" he jerked his chin at the rest of Billy's gang "-told me you were beautiful." Then he shook his head. "Their description didn't do you justice."

Tyler glanced at the guys and then walked up to the desk. She shook her head. "Thanks," she said, though she didn't sound at all interested in flattery.

The guy grinned. "I'm Bates," he said.

She glanced at Billy, unsure of whether or not to tell this man her name. "Tyler," she said at last.

"Nice to meet you, Angel," Bates said. "Now, I hear that's what I'm making you? I'm giving you your wings?"

She nodded once.

Bates reached under the counter and set a massive book of artwork in front of Tyler. He opened a page and said, "These here and the next three pages are wings. Which pair do you want?"

Tyler flipped quickly through the pages, and she saw a pair of wings she liked immediately on the second page. She looked on the third page just to review all of her options but then flipped back and tapped the pair she wanted with a finger. "These," she said.

Bates raised an eyebrow. "And where will I be painting these wings?"

"Across my back," she said.

He nodded and made his way around the counter so that he was on the same side of it as her. He stepped behind her and asked, "from where, to where?"

Tyler reached up and pointed to a place just two inches below the tops of her shoulders, on her back. "From here," she said, shivering when Bates put one hand where she had indicated, "to here," and she touched her lower back. Bates put his other hand there and mumbled something or other to himself.

Then he asked, "Just across your back? No arms, neck or ass?"

"Just my back," she said.

While they were discussing the locations of her new body art, Billy and the gang had ambled over and looked at the two pages lying open in the book on the counter. Bates went back around behind it and disappeared around a corner, and Tyler stepped up.

"Which one did you pick?" Bodi asked.

She reached forward between the guys and set her finger on the pair of wings she'd chosen.

"You'll look good, Angel," Heco said, grinning.

Billy looked to see if Bates was coming back and then dropped his voice. All of the guys and Tyler were looking at him expectantly, waiting for him to speak. "Listen," he said. "We all know what's gonna happen if everyone knows Tyler's full name and the cops get wind of it."

"So what'll we call her, Billy?" Spink asked, sounding very over-excited.

Billy opened his mouth to speak, but he, Jake, Ash, and Baggy all said the same word at the same time. "Angel," they said.

The rest of the guys nodded. "Angel," everyone but Tyler said.

A moment later Bates came back and motioned for them to follow him into a back room. There, Tyler turned away from all of them and took off her shirt and her bra, holding her shirt over her chest as she went to lie on her stomach on a table.

And getting those wings hurt. It hurt like hell. But Tyler didn't make a sound. She wasn't allowed to laugh or talk because then her shoulders and her ribcage would move and expand, making Bates' job twice as hard. So they were all silent and all of the guys stood around and watched Bates work. Tyler didn't have to concentrate on keeping quiet; her high pain tolerance and desire to suffer in silence came naturally. And she'd had worse pain in much worse places that had been induced by falling off a horse or pulling a muscle. This was nothing.

After what seemed simultaneously like only a few moments and also forever, Bates lifted the needle from her skin and held it there. "What do you think?" he asked the guys.

There were mostly mumbled responses, but Billy said, "Perfect," and she could all but hear the grin in his voice.

"You're done, Angel," Bates said, standing up and stepping away.

Tyler got up, careful to hold her shirt over her bare chest, and followed Bates to a small closet. Inside there was a bright light on the ceiling and when the door was closed behind her she was in a three-walled world of mirrors. If she turned a certain way and looked at the mirror in front of her, she could see the reflection of her back in the mirror behind her.

The skin around the new black ink was a bit red, but not incredibly so. And even she had to admit that her new wings were beautiful. Even now they looked solid enough to unfold from her back and sweep her away and into the air.

A smile made the corners of her mouth twitch when she thought about the expression that would be on her mom's face if the poor woman saw her now. Bonnie Williamson had always liked it better when her daughter didn't wear any makeup, and now Tyler was wearing everything; concealer, powder, blush, bronzer, dark eye-shadow, black mascara and eye-liner, and blood-red lipstick. Her hair was pinned up in a messy bun, but it only added to the seductive look. She was wearing skin-tight skinny jeans, lace-up army boots, and as of the moment, no shirt or bra. And now a pair of intricate, feathered angel wings graced her back and her shoulder blades. Yes, if her mother could see her now, she'd have a heart-attack.

Tyler stepped out of the closet, grabbed her bra, and stepped back in. Then she put her clothes back on, smiling at the way her shirt gave no sign of the ink-stained skin beneath it. Then she left the closet, smiling at Bates. "They're perfect," she said.

He only nodded and looked expectantly to Billy, who never looked away from Tyler as he slapped a wad of cash into Bates' hand.

Behind Billy the guys were handing over money; the results of their winning or losing bets on whether she'd cry or whimper or say anything while the needle was in her.

Then they all left the Ink House.

"Let's celebrate," Billy said, grinning. When Tyler looked questioningly at their car, he shook his head. "We'll eat first, and it's only a block away. No need to drive and make the guys walk."

Tyler nodded.

Bodi walked up and congratulated her as they walked, and he slapped her on the back as he did. It hurt, but not enough to evoke even a flinch or a twitch of the eye from her.

"Thanks," she said, giving him a half-smile of confusion. Then she saw the look on his and the other guys' faces and realized that he'd really just done it to see if she'd cry or jump when he hit her. She glanced at Billy, but he was looking smug. So she quickened her pace and danced her way to his side. Part of her wished she could reach out and take his hand or his arm, but she knew better, so she refrained.

They had just reached the end of the block and were approaching a crosswalk when a car came screeching to a halt in front of them. A very angry-looking fat man climbed out, slamming the car door behind him and walking toward the gang, who had stopped at the sight of him.

"Where the fuck have you motherfuckers been?" he bellowed.

"One of us was gettin' inked, Bones," Bodi said.

"I don't give a fuck if one of you dickless shits wants another fuckin' sticker in your skin," he yelled, "I gave you a job and you haven't fuckin' paid me yet. Now what the fuck is that all about?"

"She was gettin' inked," Billy said, sounding annoyed with the fat man. "Part of her initiation."

At Billy's words, Bones' eyes swept across the group, and they came to rest on Tyler. He looked at Billy, then, seeming disbelieving and annoyed. "So you're lettin' fuckin' females into the gang now? Jesus, Billy, you've really fuckin' lost it, you know that? Who the fuck is she?" he demanded loudly.

Billy opened his mouth to speak, but Tyler stepped forward so that she was standing right in front of Bones. "I work for you now," she said. "That's who I am."

He laughed. "I don't know you," he said.

His right hand was lifted and on its way upwards—presumably to scratch his fat head or some other disgusting part of his body—but Tyler stopped its flight. She shook it firmly, not letting go until she was positive he'd gotten the message, and she said, "You're Bones. I'm Tyler. Nice to meet you. There, now you know me." She couldn't help but wear the sassiest expression she had when she asked with a sarcastic smile, "Better?"

"I don't let bitches work for me."

"You're right," Tyler said, far from finished with the sass and the sarcasm. "You don't let _bitches_ work for you. Both because I'm the _only_ female working for you and because you don't have a say in the matter."

She didn't even flinch when he drew a pistol and pointed it at her. "Actually," he said, "I do have a fuckin' say. I could just blow your fuckin' head off right now."

Tyler could practically feel the tension and the fear rolling off of the men behind her. But she wasn't fazed. This new life was dangerous, and she'd chosen it, knowing full well just how often her life would be put on the line. "You could kill me," she said, sounding uninterested in the subject, "Or you could open those blind balls you call eyes and shake that fat pimple of a head and realize that I would be useful to you."

Billy was standing behind her and a bit to the side, and she didn't flinch or show any sign of it when he lifted the hand of his that was hidden from Bones and gently touched the small of her back. She could feel in his touch just how desperate he was, and how he was silently pleading with her to back down and stop being so stubborn and sarcastic.

But she ignored it. "Well?" she demanded, looking straight at Bones.

He laughed. "You wouldn't happen to be the sweetheart of any of these boys now, would you?"

Tyler turned and looked at Billy. His eyes didn't leave Bones' face, but he seemed to sense her stare. "She's mine," he said.

Bones had been staring at Tyler, his expression unreadable, but when she returned her gaze to him he had turned his eyes on Billy. Then Bones looked between the two of them slowly and his eyes rested on Tyler. "I like her," he said. "She's one hell of a sassy bitch. And you're still with her, so she must be a pretty good fuck."

Billy opened his mouth to say something, but Tyler was pissed. "Screw you," she growled at him.

He laughed. "You done good, boy," he said. "You done fuckin' good. Fuckin' good."

"Well," he said, tucking the pistol back in his belt, "I got me a new employee, and it seems like she'll be keeping all of you lazy fuckers in line. So today's not such a bad fuckin' day after all."

Billy nodded.

Bones walked forward and leaned his forehead against Billy's. "You fuckin' take care of these boys, and this girl, you hear?" he said. "And stay safe, god-fuckin'-dammit." Then he kissed the top of Billy's head and turned to walk away.

"They're burnin' Joe, if you're interested," Billy said, causing the fat old man to stop in his tracks.

Bones turned around and said, "You lot get to work now, and don't fucking disappoint me again or one of you'll fuckin' pay with your fuckin' life." Then he turned back to his car and walked towards it, mumbling, "Motherfuckers," as he went. When he'd closed the door and was safely in his car, he went peeling away from the curb, tires squealing in protest to the sudden amount of pressure he put on the gas pedal.

They all watched him go, and then someone hit her from behind. It was a brotherly hug, but it felt like a blow on her sore-skinned back. It was Bodi. "Aint nobody ever talks to Bones like that and lives! You got a silver tongue on you, Angel. A motherfuckin' silver tongue!"

"If she's an angel," said one of the guys, though she wasn't sure because all of them were jumping up against her and hugging her—well, all except for Billy—and the speaker went on, "if she's an angel then she's a dark angel. The kind that means trouble and knows how to talk her way out of things. Not that she needs that silver tongue; her looks could get her out of anything if she knew how to act."

"Knew how to act," Tyler repeated, whipping around to face Baggy, who had been talking. Then her voice dropped to a whisper and she said, "Oh, but babe, I do know how to act." She leaned close as she spoke and by the time she said the last word her lips were brushing Baggy's ear. Then she danced around him, letting her fingers trail down from his cheek, down his neck and across his collar bone. Then she ran her fingertips across his shoulders, standing on tip-toe to nip at his earlobe and smiling and drawing back in satisfaction when she heard his disarmed, aroused, sharp intake of breath.

"Damn," Baggy said, looking at Billy, who had watched with an interested, calculative expression, "you got yourself one dark angel, Billy. One motherfucking dark angel with a silver tongue. A temptress. She could work her way out of any fuckin' situation, whether it was by words or moves. You done good by her and we will too."

Billy nodded, and Tyler blinked in surprise when he was at her side in an instant. He leaned down, his mouth brushing her ear and making her shiver in delight when he whispered, growling, "You're not allowed to flirt with anyone but me."

She froze beneath his touch for only an instant, and then she turned around quickly, planting a chaste kiss on the tip of his nose and whispering just as dangerously, "Aw, babe. Jealous?"

She was unsurprised when he hooked an arm around her and pulled her firmly against him. "Absolutely," he whispered in her ear.

"Good," she chirped, slipping nimbly out of his grasp and dancing agilely away from him.

But as soon as her back was turned his arms were around her and he was holding her close against him again.

Before he could say anything, she turned around in his arms and leaned her chin against his chest, burying her face in his neck. "You know," she said, "I wasn't serious. I wouldn't dare do anything with anyone but you. Tempting Baggy was just to show that I'm not incompetent like he said I was."

Billy grinned and lowered his head, catching her mouth with his. "Good," he said between kisses, "because . . . I . . . wouldn't dare . . . to . . . even . . . flirt . . . with . . . any . . . woman . . . that . . . isn't . . . you."

"I know," she said, hooking an arm around his neck and standing on her toes to kiss him more deeply. She got completely lost in that moment, in the feeling of their lips molding together and the way his arms were around her and how his one hand gripped her opposite hip and the feel of her fingers curled against the back of his neck. And he seemed to be getting lost in it all, too.

But both of them came back to reality when Spink leaned close to them and said loudly, "Yo, get a room!"

Tyler leaned her forehead against Billy's chest when he pulled away to glare at Spink. She could feel his displeasure in his tense muscles, and she reached up to trace the black curls of flame on his neck. She didn't lift her head when she did, having traced the tattoos so many times she could still navigate his body and stroke his ink-stained skin even if she went blind or was in complete darkness. She had memorized every inch of him, and she knew he'd done the same with her. Still not lifting her head, she leaned her chin forward and placed a kiss on Billy's chest, knowing that he would feel it through his shirt. Then she whispered soothingly, "We'll continue that later."

She looked up at him then, and he grudgingly released Spink from an icy glare and turned to look at her, his eyes softening as he did. "Exactly the same?" he challenged quietly.

She stared into his eyes for a minute. "Exactly the same. Or . . . a little bit more heated, if that's what you want."

He smirked at her and she could see the smile in his eyes.

But she had other things on her mind than what she and Billy would be doing later once they got back to the apartment. "So," she said, "Bones. What a nice, considerate guy."

The guys all laughed, but the muscles in Billy's jaw tightened and he didn't even smirk at her sarcasm. There was a moment of silence.

Then she leaned close to him and asked quietly, "Billy?"

He looked down at her, and she frowned up at him concernedly.

He was quiet for a minute or two, and then he pointed in the direction Bones had disappeared. "You wanna know why none of us can understand why you'd be so fuckin' protective of your daddy? Why we just don't get how you can love and respect him so much?"

Tyler licked her lips and swallowed hard. She didn't know that she wanted to know what Billy was about to tell her. But he went on without waiting to see her reaction.

"That," he said, jerking his pointed finger once again in the direction Bones had gone, "is my daddy. As you might guess, he's never done a fuckin' thing for me besides yell at me, beat me, and tell me that I'm worthless and that I work for him. Anyone else would be a better fuckin' employer, but do I have any fuckin' say in the matter? Fuck no."

Tyler licked her lips again. Then she nodded. The part of her that would have quietly apologized to any of her peers or friends in another circumstance wanted to tell him that she was sorry. But she knew better than to give him useless words. So she turned and glanced at the other guys. They all looked sorry for her for getting yelled at, but none of them offered any comfort or protection from Billy's suddenly-there fury.

Bodi stepped towards her, then, and said, "My dad was killed when I was three. While I watched."

Tyler bit her lip as the rest of the guys stepped closer as well and shared their stories about their fathers. Most of their dads were dead or in prison or hadn't been heard from in years and were god-knew-where. A few of them were still around, and like Bones, they held none of their children's respect or affections.

"You damn lucky to have a daddy like you do," Jake said. Then he frowned and added, "And we done took you away from him."

Tyler shook her head. "You didn't kidnap me," she said.

"I bought you," Billy said, seemingly thinking of other things than his father and appearing to have cooled down as a result.

"And now you're freeing me and teaching me how to survive in your world," Tyler said. "You owe me nothing. Nothing, you hear me?" and she stepped forward and cupped his cheek in her hand.

He chuckled and looked past her shoulder at the other guys.

"Dog," Bodi said from behind her, "I don't know how you did it, but you fuckin' did it. You got a nice, sweet chick to fuckin' love you."

Billy laughed, showing his teeth in a savage, dangerous grin. "She don't love me." Then his gaze found her face and he said, still speaking to Bodi, "She wouldn't be so stupid."

Tyler smirked. Then, without turning to look away from Billy's face, she said to Bodi, "He's right; I know better."

But later that afternoon, when she and Billy got back to the apartment, she realized that those words were definitely not the truth.


	9. Revenge

She made Billy tacos and watched with a pleased expression when he actually liked them. He ate six of them and she ate two, and she got him to sit across the small table in the kitchen and eat with her. And looking across the table at him as she ate, she couldn't help but imagine what it would be like to spend the rest of her life eating across from him every night and making him dinner often. When he'd finished eating, she asked, "Well?"

He grinned and said, "Best food I ever ate."

She smiled and stood up, clearing the table and putting things back in the fridge before she washed the dishes. She was completely aware of Billy the entire time, as he stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room, leaning against the wall and watching her as she worked. When she'd finished, she dried her hands on a towel and turned around to face him, expecting him to still be leaning against the wall and watching her. But he wasn't. He was right behind her, and when she turned around they were quite suddenly face to face.

His hands were on her hips as soon as she was facing him, and he started to slide them up her shirt. As his hands found their way under the thin fabric, he took two small steps forward, pressing his hips against hers and causing her to back up until her butt hit the counter. When he had her right where he wanted her—pinned and unable to escape—he leaned down and kissed her, and the kiss was hard and passionate but somehow also soft.

After a moment he broke away and kissed his way across her cheek until his lips brushed her ear. "What do you say we break in the bedroom?" he asked.

She opened her mouth answer but he didn't give her a chance to say anything; in an instant he'd leaned down and picked her up, throwing her over his shoulder and holding onto her legs. Then he walked out of the kitchen and carried her to the bedroom, throwing her down on the bed gently but with force and a firm grip on her.

And break the bed in they did.

The next morning after breakfast (she made egg-burritos with bacon and cheese scrambled in) Tyler asked, "Where did you put the needles and the other stuff."

He turned and looked at her, frowning questioningly.

"It's been six months," she said, shrugging and looking away. "I might not be your slave any more but that doesn't mean we want kids."

He nodded and said, "In the bathroom cabinet. Top shelf."

She nodded and headed for the bathroom, passing him as she went. But he grabbed her arm and stopped her from leaving the room. He leaned down and whispered, "Still know how to properly stick yourself, Angel?"

She tilted her head towards him in a jerky, half-nod. "Always," she said.

He inclined his head in response and released her arm.

When she'd finished injecting the long-lasting birth-control into her arm and putting the bag of needles and syringes away, she returned to the kitchen. Billy hadn't moved from his earlier position, and he was staring at the clock.

"Alright, Angel," he said, tossing her the keys to his car, "it's time for me to teach you some tricks and for us to find out how useful that silver tongue of yours really is."

She held up the keys and shook them, making them jingle and looking at him questioningly.

"In the meantime," he said as he held the door open and she walked past, "you're gonna stop driving like a pussy and learn how to drive like the fucking dangerous angel you are."

And she did learn. She learned all that was necessary to survive. Of course, learning everything took much more than a single day, but she was smart and she learned quickly, and once she'd learned something, she never forgot it. By the time another year and a half rolled around and she was seventeen, she was quite famed on the more dangerous end of the sewer. She was known by many names, including, "Angel," "Dark Angel," "Silver Tongue," and "Danger in the Shape of a Woman." And her learning days were over. Now she was a seasoned professional and she knew exactly what she was doing.

She knew how to brew the best meth on her side of the city. She could handle a gun and even though she'd only ever killed one man, she was always ready to take the life of another. She knew her way around the city, even the dark alleys and backways. She could talk her way in or out of any situation that she pleased, not that she needed it; she could walk and move her way in or out just as easily. She could drive Billy's car—or any car or truck, for that matter—more recklessly and still more carefully than anyone had ever driven a vehicle in America. She knew who to talk to, who to threaten, and who to pay to get her way.

And she was the hardest, most successful worker Bones ever had. She went above and beyond no matter what quests he sent her on or jobs he gave her and she always pressed the gang to do just as much.

She returned to the Ink House not long after her seventeenth birthday to get Billy's name tattooed within the wings inked on her back. She went alone, and only she and Bates ever knew about it. She had him ink the word Billy within the left wing on her back and the word Darley on the right. But she directed him in tattooing them so that they blended in with the feathers and could only be read if the lines of feathers were counted and the reader searched for the words on a certain line.

"You really do love him," Bates had said as he inked the _y_ in Billy's last name on the right side of her back.

Tyler had laughed and Bates had grinned, but something deep inside of her had ached because she knew that he was right.

But that had been then, and this was now. Tyler Williamson was seventeen, and no one ever called her by even her first name, not anyone in the gang, not even Billy. She was known to them only by the names that the rest of the sewer knew her by, and she answered to them as if to her own name. So in all actuality Tyler Williamson was dead, replaced by her dark, dangerous counterpart.

Angel, the Dark Angel that everyone knew belonged to Billy Darley—though he belonged to her just as much as she did to him—was cunning and nimble and dangerous, and she had a back covered in black ink. Tyler Williamson had been a sweet, innocent country-girl who got good grades and wasn't going to date until college because she had strict parents. Tyler Williamson could never have imagined herself, only much darker and with tattoos and a gun, walking into a building and demanding any and all of the money present, quite ready to shoot the person in front of her if he didn't obey her orders.

It was June twenty-fifth. Tyler had her own car now, one that looked just as slick and dangerously beautiful as Billy's. She pulled up the ancient building that she and Billy had lived in once upon a time and walked inside, nearly dancing her way in because she was so graceful and unintentionally seductive and sexy. Over her shoulder was slung a leather bag much like the one Billy had, and she walked in with a subconscious swagger in her step. She was smiling as she walked into the large basement room, but her smile vanished when she saw all of the guys sitting or standing around. Something weird was going on, she was sure of it.

"What?" she asked.

No answer besides strange, blank stares.

"What?" she asked again. And again, no response. "Somebody please tell me what the fuck is going on?" she said, annoyed now.

Bodi stepped forward, looking concerned and sad. "You hear?" he asked. Then a strange look came over his face—a look that spoke of his remembering that he'd been through this exact experience and said these exact words before—and he said, "Billy, dude. Somebody popped 'em. He's dead."

Tyler's frown disappeared and her eyes widened fractionally. "What? No."

Bodi held his breath, waiting for her to say exactly what Billy had said; _"What? No. You're lying."_

But she didn't. Even after being roughed and changed by life with them, she was still smoother and sweeter and softer than Billy had ever been. "You're sure?" she asked quietly.

Bodi nodded once in silence.

She swallowed and licked her lips, turning to look at the rest of the guys. Though they expected her to, she didn't storm out to find the truth for herself. She just nodded to herself, bit her lip, and stopped biting it to ask, "Well? What can you tell me? Who did it?" she asked. "Who killed Billy, and when did they do it?"

Spink stood up. "It happened half hour ago," he said. "We wasn't all there, just me 'n Heco. We heard a shot and when we got there Billy was . . . there was a lot o' blood. There ain't no way he couldn't o' . . ." he trailed off, shoulders sagging.

Tyler nodded. "Who?" she asked, licking her lips again.

"The Hall," Heco said. "We saw those assholes heading out and we went after 'em, but they had the jump on us."

Tyler nodded once. Then she asked, quietly, "Where's Billy?"

Bodi swallowed. "We took 'em up to the dead house. They'll burn him today."

Tyler lifted her chin. Then she lowered it and looked around at them. He voice wasn't quiet and didn't falter now when she spoke. "It seems that there are some new motherfuckers who need to die," she said. "You know which one of 'em killed Billy?"

Heco nodded, but Spink was the one to speak. "Blake," he said, speaking of the leader of the gang known as _The_ _Hall_.

"Great," she said, though her tone was far from excited or pleased. "You can divvy up the others among yourselves, but I want the bastard. He's mine to kill."

They all nodded solemnly and rose from their seats.

"We've got some people to deal with," Tyler said as they got their guns and left the building. Billy was dead. And they meant business.

Tyler became a whirlwind of rage. She was pure hatred, nothing but fury locked in the form of a petite seventeen-year-old girl. And she hated everything. Not necessarily everyone, as the members of what had been Billy's gang were like family to her, and even the temporary, murderous insanity that she suffered after his death was not enough to take away her love for them. Before she had joined the gang, it would have been Bodi who took over in the event of Billy's death. But because she was more renowned that any other in the group, and because she could command the lot of them with just a glance, the boys passed it to her. Now she was responsible for the gang, she was the one whose orders were obeyed without question, and she was the one calling the shots.

Now she was the leader. And she led them. Hell, she led them halfway across town to the building where they knew they could find The Hall. And there all of them were. Before she and the gang kicked down the doors, she turned to them and said, "You can kill whoever the hell you want but I get Blake."

They nodded silently and then she turned and kicked in the doors, and they went in, guns blazing.


	10. The Oath

Tyler took a deep breath. Opening her eyes, she looked around the large room they were in. Hell had visited this place. Well, hell in the shape of Billy's gang. _Her_ _gang_, now.

She turned around, pushing those two words out of her mind. The guys were all gathered at the door, watching her. She was standing in the middle of the room, and her voice echoed around them when she spoke. "You're sure this is all of them?" she asked.

Bodi nodded.

Spink pointed to a body in the corner and said, "He was their latest. Initiation happened two weeks ago."

Tyler nodded. "Good," she said. Then she walked towards the guys, and they parted, allowing her a path to walk between them. She walked through the door, leaving the building and walking down the stairs. The gang followed her in silence. When they got down the street to their parked cars, she turned to face them yet again. "If you need anything, I'll be at Billy's apartment."

Heco stepped forward as soon as she'd spoken. "Your apartment," he said.

But he was hardly done speaking when Baggy took a step forward and lifted his hand to silence the other man. His eyes didn't leave Tyler's face.

She didn't wait for him to say anything. "Bones has a job for us tomorrow. We meet at the abandoned church at nine."

"No," Baggy said.

Tyler raised an eyebrow, silently questioning his opposition. She gave a half nod, signaling for him to explain himself.

He turned a bit, glancing out of the corners of his eyes at the men behind him. Then he turned back to face Tyler. "After you joined," he said after a long moment, "Billy met all of us one night and made us swear an oath. An oath I don't intend to fuckin' break."

Tyler frowned. She tilted her head to the side. "An oath," she repeated. "To do what?"

Baggy hesitated for a moment, and then he said, "You gotta go. You go back to Billy's, you get cleaned up"—he glanced at the blood spattered on her dark grey shirt—"and then . . ." he paused, as if he wasn't sure whether he should go on, but he continued, "then you go the fuck home."

The crease in Tyler's brow deepened. "Billy's place _is_ home," she said.

But Baggy shook his head. "Your real fuckin' home," he said, "home with your family. Your real family. You go back wherever the hell you came from and you live with your parents and you let your daddy know that you aint dead."

Tyler's frown had melted away as he spoke. She opened her mouth to speak, but for a moment no words would come. "What?" she asked, her voice hardly a whisper.

Bodi stepped forward. "You go back to your life before you was kidnapped," he said. "This is your fuckin' chance to get the hell outta here. Finish school. Go to college for some fancy degree. Find a boyfriend who's a dentist or a doctor or some shit, get married, have babies."

Tyler's voice was still a whisper when she spoke again. "Billy made you swear . . ." she trailed off.

"Made us swear to let you go," Bodi picked up.

"_Make_ me go," she corrected him. "I'm free to go when I want. I have been for more than a year."

But the guys shook their heads. "That aint true, and you know it," Baggy said.

"He wanted to make sure that if anything happened to him and he couldn't be here to make sure you didn't get into any fuckin' trouble," Spink said, "you'd go home and get outta here and be safe."

Tyler's head was spinning. She could go? But no, she couldn't. Just because Billy was gone didn't mean she had no obligations here. "Gang wars are dangerous things," she said after a moment.

Bodi threw his head back and laughed. "We'll do just fine without you, Angel. Don't you worry about us."

But she was adamant. "I'm not leaving you to finish what I started!"

The guys smiled. "We know how to clean up this kind of thing," Jake said.

Tyler smiled, but it was a smile full of pain, and her lips trembled. "Yes, but you'd be cleaning up after my mess."

"You didn't kill The Hall all fuckin' alone," Heco pointed out. "We're just as responsible as you."

Tyler shook her head. For the first time in a very, very long time, she was close to tears. "No, no, no. I can't ask you to do that."

The guys smiled wider.

"You aint askin'," Bodi said. "And we're tellin' you. You go back to Billy's. You get cleaned up. Then you go to the fucking cops or whoever the hell you need to go to and you fucking get home to your family."

Tyler took a deep breath. Her thoughts were a whirlwind of chaos. "I . . . Fine," she said after a minute. Then she looked up at them all, tears brimming in her eyes, and said, "And don't you bastards worry about the cops, either; I won't set 'em on your trail."

"What you gonna tell 'em, then?" Baggy asked.

Tyler sniffed, blinking away her tears. "There are a couple of advantages of living in this part of town," she said. "I know exactly who the fuckers are that kidnapped me. I'll tell the police it was them. They kidnapped me and they kept me even though they sold the other girls."

The guys nodded. "You gonna be alright, Angel?" Bodi asked.

Tyler nodded. Then she looked up at him again. "I know my way around this part of town. And I haven't forgotten my way around the part I used to live in before everything happened. I'm gonna stay at Billy's tonight. I'll leave in the morning. And I'm gonna walk. I can't drive up to the police department in a pimped out car. It'll be in the parking lot in the morning. You can come and get it then."

Bodi nodded once.

Tyler took a deep breath, biting her lip. "Well," she said, wondering at the sudden lack of tears in her eyes, "I guess this is goodbye?"

The guys nodded silently. Then Bodi took a step closer and said, "Damn. You're like that little sister none of us wanted."

"Little sister who could whoop your ass," Tyler said.

Bodi grinned. "I don't fuckin' doubt it," he said.

She smiled sadly as she took a step forward, closing the gap between them to hug him.

He held her for only a moment, and before he let her go he said quietly, "You done us proud, Angel."

She was smiling as she pulled away. Then she went through the rest of them, sharing short-but-sweet embraces of farewell. When she'd hugged all of them she went to her car. After she'd gone around to the driver's side and opened the door, she looked up at them one last time. "Don't do anything stupid," she said after a short pause. "And you boys take care of each other."

Baggy nodded. "Yes, ma'am," he said.

Tyler looked away.

"See you around," Bodi said after a moment of silence.

Tyler had been looking down, but her eyes found his face and she lifted an eyebrow. "No you won't," she said, flashing a momentary smile.

Then she got into the car and shut the door. She started the engine and pulled away from the curb, glancing in the mirror to catch one last glimpse of the group of men who had been her older brothers, her family, for so long now. Then she turned a corner and they were gone. And so was she.

She parked in the same parking lot that she and Billy had parted ways in that very morning. He'd been teasing her, and before he'd gotten into his car she'd punched him on the arm and said, "Screw you."

Those had been her last words to him. But that didn't bother her; the way she'd said them hadn't been maliciously. In fact, if Billy had read between the lines—as she knew he wouldn't—he would have discovered the subtext and realized that she was saying "I love you" in the only way she could.

She sighed as she stood on her tiptoes to reach the key above the door. She unlocked it, setting the key back in its hiding place before she entered their apartment. His apartment. She flipped on the lights and looked around, marveling at how quiet everything seemed, even though she and Billy probably wouldn't have been talking if he'd been there. The rooms felt strangely vacant and hollow without Billy's presence there to fill them up.

Tyler had always tried to blend in, even since she'd learned how to live in this part of the sewer. She was always the quiet one until she needed to be loud, the one who nobody suspected could be dangerous. But Billy had always been loud. Even when he was quiet and entered a room in silence and without drawing attention to himself, his presence filled the place. It was just something that could be felt, something that often caused people to look up when he walked in.

And Tyler missed it.

She licked her lips as she went to the kitchen, but she had no appetite. So she drank a glass of water and wondered what to do with herself for the rest of the day, as it was only three o'clock. Realizing that she probably shouldn't show up at the police department wearing dark skinny jeans and dark-looking clothes, she went to the bedroom. She went through the closet and their dresser, searching through her clothes for something that looked innocent, something Tyler Williamson would have worn before she became Angel.

But she could find nothing.

Sighing, she left the apartment with a wad of cash in her pocket. And for the first time in an incredibly long time, she drove herself to the mall. It was weird, walking in and wondering which store to go to first. She hadn't been in a shopping mall in she didn't know how many years. And in her entire life, she'd never been to the mall intending to change her look completely. She went into several department stores, finally settling for a pair of faded blue jeans and a simple, dark grey t-shirt with short sleeves and a neckline that didn't even show her collarbones. Then she bought a pack of socks. She needed those but didn't need to buy new shoes; she still had the same shoes that she'd been wearing when she was kidnapped, and they still fit her feet. Then she had to go and find a pack of simple panties and a new, plain bra, knowing that her mom would throw a fit if she found the frilly, lacy lingerie she was wearing. Then she left the mall and went home.

_Home_. The word held several meanings for her. Once upon a time she'd thought of home and immediately thought of her parents' house. Then, a couple of years before, she'd come to think of home as the ancient building that she and Billy had first lived in. And then, almost two years before, she and Billy had moved to his apartment, and now when she thought the word _home_, she thought of the apartment.

When she got inside she set all of her new clothes on her dresser and went to the bathroom. She showered, taking special care to remove any and all makeup she was wearing. When she got out of the shower she dried off, wrapping herself in a towel and brushing her teeth in front of the mirror. She finished and set her toothbrush down, and then she looked at herself in the mirror. She tried to picture herself three years before, tried to remember the reflection she used to see when she looked in the mirror. She used to have long, curly blonde hair, big brown eyes, and a few freckles sprinkled across her nose and cheeks. She looked like that now, but her eyes seemed darker and her hair was longer and her freckles were usually covered by makeup. She couldn't properly remember who the girl in the mirror used to be.

She shouldn't be there. Standing on her feet, having shopped and showered and now perfectly stable. She should be lying on the floor, crippled with grief, unable to move. But instead she only felt a terrible numbness, and a burning, aching pain in her chest as if a hole had been blown through her. She sighed, looking away from her reflection. They would have burned Billy by now. She took a deep breath. The thought of Billy should bring some kind of emotion out of her, but she just felt an emptiness. A crushing, lonely emptiness that seemed inescapable.

She knew the emotions would come. There would be tears. Now it was just a question of when.

And the time came later that night. She got into bed, sliding under the sheets. She wasn't going to think about Billy. She was going to roll over and she was going to make her mind go blank and she was going to get some sleep.

But that was where she went wrong.

She rolled over, and there was his pillow. Her face brushed it and she could smell him on it. It was that perfect mixture of his cologne and his natural smell, and it took the numbness in her and it crushed it. She shut her eyes tight, and in a moment she was reliving everything that had happened since she'd been kidnapped. Images flashed before her eyes, there for a split-second and then gone, replaced by a newer picture. But that split-second was enough. The gas station. The men that came in. Timmy, dead in her arms. The pulsing pain when they threw her into the shelves. And then, later. Her first look at Billy. Her first look at their room in the old building. Their first night. The sarcasm and the bantering. And then, more recent things came. She was getting her wings. She was joining the gang. She was working for bones. She was making dinner for Billy. She was curling up against him at night. She was getting his name inked into the wings. She was punching him in the arm that morning. She was kissing him goodbye for the last time. And then, all at once, the images stopped and were instead replaced by an actual memory. More like a nightmare, she relived walking into the old place and finding the guys sitting around, looking somber. She relived the entire day.

She had kept her eyes squeezed tightly shut, but at last she could take it no more; the last image that flashed in her mind, fading slowly, was that of her lying alone in the bed. She opened her eyes and sat up suddenly. And then she realized that she was crying. She didn't know when it had started, but the liquid was flowing freely down her cheeks and dripping off of her chin and onto her shirt and the comforter on the bed.

And that was when the real tears came. There were so many that her vision blurred and she couldn't see. The next half hour was spent with her blindly rolling around in the sheets, clutching at the pillows and the blankets on the bed, trying to find something to hold on to that would comfort her. But she found nothing.

Eventually, she cried until she could cry no more. Some three hours later she was lying in the bed, tangled in a mess of sheets and blankets, too exhausted and drained to move. She was curled up, with her knees pulled up to her chest and her arms wrapped around them, lying on her side. She lay there in silence for a long while, occasionally sniffing or sucking in a quiet breath, followed by whispering his name.

She must have fallen asleep at some point, because she woke up in the morning. Funny, she'd always thought that when she lost someone she would wake up, having forgotten that they were gone, and then she'd wonder about it for a moment before she remembered. But that night it was like she never fully fell asleep and was aware of Billy's death even as she slept. It was the thing that roused her in the morning, and when she woke up she stared blankly at the ceiling for a while, lost in thought about everything that had happened, because she knew right away. She didn't need to sit there and think back to realize it all. She just _knew_.

Then she roused herself and managed to find the strength to get out of bed. Today was, after all, a very big day. It was June twenty-sixth. She should see her parents within the week, maybe even her brothers. She would have to go to court to testify against the men who had kidnapped her and the two of them who were in charge of the trafficking system. But she wouldn't think about that now. She was going _home_, for good.

But she wasn't, not really. Once upon a time home had been where her family lived. But that was no more. More recently, home had been wherever Billy was. But Billy was gone now, and it seemed that he'd taken her hope, and her home, with him.


	11. Case Closed

Tyler walked down the street. She had looked carefully at herself in the mirror, and she sighed; she wasn't Billy's angel anymore. No, Tyler Williamson had been resurrected and the all-American country girl she had once been was the one walking down the sidewalk.

She made her way to the police department, passing the apartment complex that she and her dad had been living in when she was kidnapped. She stopped on the corner, staring up at the familiar building with a strange feeling building in her gut. It had been so long since she'd seen it, so long since she'd forced herself to stop picturing it in her head. It was like going through some exhausting experience, only to come out of it and find an old friend waiting for her with a smile on their face. She smiled sadly up at the building for a moment before turning and continuing on her way. The police department was only a few streets away now.

She'd never been inside, but she'd passed it nearly every day on her way to Joe's gas station. Sighing at the memories that came flooding back at the thought of Joe, she crossed the final street, looking up at the large building in front of her. Her whole life was about to change, once again.

She approached cautiously, walking through the front door and getting a good look at the room around her before she made her way to the reception desk at the front. A pretty blonde woman was sitting behind it, typing something on the computer. Tyler reached up and set her hands on the edge of the desk in front of her, realizing that she was trembling as she did.

The lady looked up and smiled. "How can I help you?" she asked.

Tyler took a deep breath. This was it. After she spoke there would be no going back. How to start? She'd rehearsed this very moment in her head a thousand times since the day before, but a lump was forming in her throat. She forced it away and said quietly, "Almost three years ago, there was an armed robbery at Joe's Gas, the station at the edge of town. The owner and a little boy were killed, and a fifteen-year-old girl was taken."

She paused, and the receptionist said slowly, "Yes, I remember the case. It was filed as unsolved just a few months ago because there wasn't any evidence and they had no leads." Then she frowned up at Tyler, but it was a concerned frown. "Do you have information about it?" she asked. "Have you seen Tyler Williamson?"

Tyler took another deep breath. "You could say that," she said after a minute. Then she let out her breath very slowly. "I'm Tyler Williamson."

The woman looked startled, but she nodded. "Alright," she said. "Would you mind waiting here for just a minute?"

Tyler shook her head. "That's fine," she said.

The receptionist turned to her computer and began typing furiously, and a moment later she stopped, staring at the screen. She turned slowly back to face Tyler, and she glanced between the computer screen and Tyler's face several times. "Oh my god," she said after a minute. "You're Tyler Williamson."

Tyler nodded.

The receptionist seemed startled and disgruntled, but she stood up and said, "Would you follow me, please?"

Tyler nodded again and followed the woman through a door and down a hall. The receptionist left her seated in an office and rushed out, closing the door behind her. Her name was Leah and she'd worked at the department for a long time. But nothing like this had ever happened before.

Leah rushed down two hallways, eventually coming to rest outside of a large door. She opened it quietly and poked her head in, biting her lip nervously; she wasn't supposed to interrupt important meetings like this one. All heads turned to her when she said quietly, "Um, Deputy Rowe?"

Michael Rowe raised his eyebrows in response.

"I'm so sorry to interrupt," she said, looking apologetically at the faces around the table, letting her gaze rest on the man she'd just called by name, "but . . . you're gonna want to see this."

Michael stood up, wondering what on earth could be so important that Leah would interrupt a meeting. She'd never done so before. And she looked strange, almost as if she'd seen a ghost. They closed the door behind them, leaving the meeting behind, and he followed her back to the office where she'd left Tyler.

He walked in, immediately noticing a young woman sitting in one of the chairs. She turned when he entered, and though she didn't recognize him, he knew his eyes grew big and his mouth fell open at the sight of her; he had been in charge of her case. This was the girl he'd been looking desperately for, the one he'd failed to find, for so long.

He introduced himself and then he went to sit behind the desk. And then he started the interview.

And she told him what he wanted to know. She told him the names of the men who had kidnapped her. She told him where he could find the trafficking place. She told him where the two men who ran the place lived. And she told him that their home was where she'd been held captive the entire time she was missing. She told him that the men had kept her even though they sold the other girls, and she told them that she had been raped and abused. And she told him that a fight had broken out between the men and someone she didn't know, and that she'd taken a chance to escape.

And he believed her. In reality, it wasn't so far from the truth; she had been taken away from the other girls, she had been raped, and she had been put through hell. Just not exactly the kind of hell she was telling the deputy.

When she'd been thoroughly interviewed and the entire police force was satisfied with her answers, they asked if she wanted to be the one to call her parents and tell them that she was alive. But she shook her head. She told them that it would be too much of a shock for whoever answered the phone to handle, and that she didn't know if she could do it without breaking down. So she stood near the desk in the front room and watched and listened as Leah called instead. At one point during the conversation on the phone she thought she could hear the person on the other end of the line shouting or sobbing, or maybe both.

And when Leah set the phone down she looked up at Tyler. "They're going to schedule flights," she said. "They'll be here to come and get you on Wednesday or Thursday. They wanted to talk to you."

But Tyler shook her head. "I'm not ready," she said.

Leah nodded. Then she changed the subject. "Okay," she said, "You'll need a place to stay until your parents get here and take you home."

Tyler nodded.

"I've spoken to the sheriff," Leah went on, "and he says you can stay in my apartment with me. Would that be alright?"

Tyler nodded again. "That's a really kind thing to offer," she said. "Thank you."

Leah smiled, nodding once.

Tyler spent the rest of the day in the department. Whenever she wasn't answering phones or checking things on her computer, Leah took every spare moment she had to talk to Tyler and get to know her better.

And Leah was really nice. She was taking art classes at the local college, and she was originally from Kansas. She had two younger brothers and an older sister, and her boyfriend was the owner of a chain of Mexican food restaurants.

But Leah didn't treat Tyler like she was some incredibly fragile thing that would break at any moment, as every else did. And Tyler liked that best about her. Leah was kind and gentle, but she wasn't afraid to ask questions or give Tyler a squeeze on the shoulder or a smile. And Tyler knew that she wasn't going to hate living with Leah while she waited for her parents to arrive. In fact, she might even enjoy herself.

And in all honesty, she did. Leah wasn't too pushy, but she treated Tyler like she would have treated anyone else. She asked what Tyler wanted for dinner and then if they should watch a movie afterwards. And they ate spaghetti for dinner—which Tyler helped make—and watched a chick-flick afterwards, complete with popcorn and sodas.

"Wow," Tyler said when the movie was over and she was arranging her pillow and blanket on the couch, "I haven't seen a movie in a really long time."

Leah had smiled, but it had been a sad smile. "How do you think you're gonna adjust to regular life? I mean," she shrugged, "do you think you'll ever be able to readjust completely?"

"Not completely," Tyler said after a moment. "Never completely. But I'll figure it out."

"I'm glad," said Leah. Then she shook her head as if to clear it and said, "Oh, I forgot; you don't have any other clothes. You can totally borrow some of mine. Is that okay?"

Tyler nodded.

"Be right back," Leah said. Then she stood up and disappeared down the hall.

While she was gone, Tyler thought about what she'd said. And Leah was right; she didn't own anything other than the clothes on her back. She had acquired plenty of belongings after she joined the gang, and she missed them now. She missed her army boots and her dark clothes and the leather jacket that Billy had given her. She missed the dark sunglasses she'd bought, and she missed wearing dark eyeliner and mascara and grey eye shadow and red lipstick. Hell, she even missed her lingerie.

She pushed thoughts of her lost belongings away and looked up with a smile when Leah came back into the room. Then she stood up, taking the clothes Leah gave her to the bathroom to change. Leah had handed her a cream-colored camisole and short white sweat shorts to sleep in. She changed and went back to sit on the couch, setting her folded clothes on the floor beside her feet.

She glanced up at Leah after a moment, and it was then that she noticed the receptionist's wide-eyed stare that was directed at her back.

_Oh._ She'd forgotten about her wings.

"They, um, they made me get them," Tyler said after a moment. "They called me their little angel."

She had looked away, but she glanced at Leah's face a moment later. The young woman's eyes were brimming with tears and she was frowning in concentration, probably trying not to cry. She bit her lip, which was trembling, and then she opened her mouth and asked slowly, "Wings? How big are they?"

Tyler nodded. "They go all of the way across my shoulders and down my back."

Leah took a deep, shaky breath. She licked her lips and bit her lip again. "When did you get them?" she asked.

"About six months after they first took me," Tyler said.

Leah nodded, and she just kept nodding, and her shoulders sagged.

It had been one hell of a long time since Tyler had even been in the presence of a fellow female for any length of time, but she still recognized what Leah needed. So she scooted closer to where Leah sat and she reached out, putting her arm around the older girl.

"No," Leah said, turning away, "This is all wrong; I'm supposed to be comforting you. I'm sorry."

Tyler just shook her head, smiling small. "I accepted it a long time ago," she said, shrugging lightly and giving Leah's arm a squeeze. "It was going to be my fate, and now it's not. I think, after yesterday, I kind of stopped feeling. I just went numb."

Leah turned back to face her, wiping her tears away hastily. "What happened yesterday?" she asked.

Tyler was tempted to tell her the truth. To tell the story, from the beginning, the real story, and the whole thing. But she knew better. Leah was committed to her job at the department and she wouldn't be able to keep that kind of a secret for Tyler. So she just smiled small again and said, "Yesterday I escaped."

"You didn't come to the department right away?" Leah asked.

Tyler shook her head. "I couldn't. It was late and I had just barely made it out the door when they realized I'd left. I had to run and find a place to hide. They spent almost the entire night looking for me, and they went back inside in the morning. That was when I left and walked to the department.

Leah nodded. "Just numb, huh?" she asked after a moment.

Tyler nodded.

"Is it better that way?" Leah asked. "I mean, is it better to feel nothing than to feel something else?"

Tyler shrugged. "Both of them aren't easy to go through; anger or sadness can consume you, but so can numb emptiness, I guess."

Leah nodded. Then she glanced up at the clock and nodded once, to herself. "It's getting late and you've had an exciting few days . . . or years."

Tyler smiled. She took her arm from around Leah's shoulders and said, "Yeah."

Leah stood up. "Goodnight," she said.

"Night," Tyler smiled back.

Leah was just about to disappear down the hallway when Tyler said, "Leah," calling her back.

She turned around, raising an eyebrow questioningly.

"Thank you," Tyler said, "for everything."

Leah nodded once and then she turned and walked down the hall.

Tyler lay down on the couch and spread the blanket over her. Then she reached over to the small table beside the couch and turned out the lamp that had been on. She curled up under the blanket, feeling cold even though it was rather warm in Leah's apartment. But she knew that she wasn't cold because of the temperature around her. She was shivering because she didn't know what she was going to do with the rest of her life or how she was going to cope with what had happened to her. She knew that the pain of losing Billy would eventually fade, as all pain did, but she also knew that she would never forget it, or forget him.


	12. Home

Tyler sighed, biting her lip and swallowing hard. This was it, this was the big moment. She was watching a small car—definitely a rental—pull up to the curb in front of the building. And even from the waiting area in the front room of the police department, she could easily recognize the silhouettes of the man who was driving and the woman sitting in the passenger seat.

She watched as they exited the car, and she felt her heart beginning to hammer in her chest. She saw them hurrying to the door, which they pushed open and stepped quickly through. They looked to the reception desk first, where Leah had stood and was watching them. She saw their questioning glances and turned to look at Tyler, who was seated a few yards away.

They turned, and as they laid eyes on her she rose to her feet. Things seemed to be playing in slow motion. They were running to her, and she was just standing there, unable to move. They were throwing their arms around her and pulling her into a hug, nearly crushing her between them, and she was standing there, finding that she wasn't able to hug them back both because they were holding her so tight and because it all felt wrong somehow.

There were supposed to be tears. And her parents were both crying. She glanced at Leah and saw that she, too, was wiping away a few tears as she watched. But Tyler wasn't crying. Instead she felt completely numb. Her parents were supposed to be smiling, and they were. She was supposed to be smiling too, but she couldn't. She could only stand there in shock, wondering why she didn't feel relieved or joyful that her parents were back and she was in their arms and they were okay and they knew that she was okay too.

They stood there for she didn't know how long, and by the time her parents pulled away she managed a small smile. "Hey," she said.

Her mom was wiping away tears, but her dad still had more shining in his eyes. "Hi," he said, frowning slightly and seeming a bit thrown off by her simple greeting.

Tyler looked up at her mom. The poor woman looked like she needed another hug, and maybe this time without her dad involved in it as well. So she took a step forward, putting her arms around her mom and taking a long moment to give her a good squeeze. And that was it, when she was rubbing her mom's back and whispering that it was okay, and that she was okay; that was when she started to feel something again.

It was just a small something, just the slightest bit of a lump in her throat that started to form as she thought about what was happening. Her mom and dad were there. She was completely safe for the first time in years. Her brothers were safe. Her parents were safe. She knew that they were safe, and they knew that she was safe. And they were here.

She started to cry, and though it was only a few tears, it was enough. Just that little bit of liquid leaving her eyes was enough to greatly reduce the sudden aching in her chest. And when she drew back, she saw the relief on her mother's face. It was strange to see such an emotion written so clearly across her mom's expression, but she could understand it; both of her parents had been concerned when Tyler had just stood there and let them hug her, not crying, barely smiling, not saying anything, not showing any kind of emotion. But now she was crying, and she was smiling, and she was hugging her dad, and she wasn't just an empty shell.

When they'd finished hugging all over again, her mom stepped back to look at her for a minute. Then she moved forward again, cupping Tyler's cheek with her hand. "My baby girl," she said, "you've gotten so big. Look at you! You're not a little fifteen-year-old anymore. You look so grown up." She teared up halfway through what she was saying, and she sniffed several times between sentences.

Then her dad did just as her mom had, stepping back as if to get a better look at her. "You look so much like my mom," he said, a few drops of liquid escaping his eyes and sliding down his cheeks as he spoke. Then he smiled, laughing through his tears, and said, "You're quite the looker. How are we going to keep the boys away from you when we get you home?"

Tyler just smiled. "Dad," she whined, playfully punching him in the arm before he pulled her in for a hug.

He just smiled in response and shrugged. "What? It's true."

Tyler couldn't keep a crooked smile off of her face as they walked to the front desk, where Leah was still standing. She was hastily wiping away tears as they approached, but Tyler didn't wait for her parents and their slow walking; she ran forward and gave Leah a hug.

There was actually quite a bit of paperwork that needed to be done before they could leave, but at Leah's direction, Tyler had already signed all of the forms and papers that she needed to. Then her parents' signatures were needed quite a few times.

Then Tyler said goodbye to Leah, feeling the echoes of sadness spreading through her mostly-numb mind when she had to hug the young woman and promised to write her letters or emails or both.

And then it was time to go home. Tyler didn't have any clothes besides the ones she'd bought at the mall and worn to the police department, so her parents took her shopping for a clean outfit before they left. Then they all boarded a plane and soon enough they were homeward bound. Her parents sat on either side of her, each of them holding one of her hands in their own and squeezing tightly. Both of them drifted off during the flight, but Tyler was awake the entire time. It was about two and a half hours before they landed, and she spent most of the time staring blankly into space and wondering what the gang was doing right at that moment.

One corner of her mouth twitched upward in a momentary smirk when she thought of Bones; he'd be furious when he found out that she'd left. That might actually be hard for him; he'd lost his oldest son and his hardest working employee all in one day. Of course, he wouldn't be too bothered when he found out that before she'd left Tyler had led the boys in completely obliterating the hall; they'd always caused nothing but trouble and as long as the police didn't get involved, Bones wouldn't care who they killed.

Then she leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes, thinking about the wings on her back. Her parents didn't know about them yet, and she knew that it would be best to tell them before they got home to her brothers. That way the initial shock and the shocked yelling and crying that would most likely result could be had out and finished before they were in the presence of the boys. And that way she could get it out of the way and tell them, ensuring that they wouldn't find out one day when she forgot that they didn't know and wore a tank top or her bathing suit when they went swimming. If they found out that way she knew things would not end well.

So she waited until their plane had landed and they were waiting to be picked up by her grandparents, who were bringing her brothers in the car with them so that they could all be there when the whole family was reunited. After a moment Tyler told her parents that she needed to tell them something, and they all stepped outside so that they wouldn't disturb the other people in the small waiting room at the miniscule airport outside of the small town they lived near.

Tyler was wearing a plaid button-up shirt over a black camisole, and after a moment she said, "There's one thing I didn't tell you."

She saw the expressions on her parents' faces change to fear, and she wondered if maybe they thought she was pregnant or she had some kind of STD.

But she just shook her head, turning around and unbuttoning her shirt. The camisole was just like wearing a tank top, so she didn't hesitate to remove the plaid shirt. Then she stood there with her back turned, waiting for their reaction. It took a moment for it to register that they were supposed to be looking at her back, and as soon as they saw what was there across her shoulders her mom gasped and her dad sucked in his breath.

"They made me get them," Tyler said, realizing that her words weren't so far from the truth.

A moment later her mom approached, tracing a few of the black lines on Tyler's shoulders. "What is it?" she asked.

Tyler thought wings—especially those painted on her back—were painfully obvious, but leave it to her mom to not see something like that. So she just said, "Wings."

"Oh," her mother said, breathing the word.

Tyler turned around, pulling her shirt back on and buttoning it up. Her dad seemed to have recovered from the shock rather quickly, but her mom was standing there with her mouth open. She started to ask, "When did you . . .?"

Even though she trailed off, Tyler understood. "They took me to get them about six months after I was taken," she said.

Her mom still looked horrified, but her dad seemed to have something on his mind that he wasn't quite sure he should say around his wife. At last, though, he decided to speak his mind. "Did it hurt?" he asked.

Tyler felt a smile creeping to her lips; her dad had been considering getting a tattoo for quite a while before she was kidnapped, and her mother had vehemently protested it. Tyler, however, had supported her dad and told him that she wanted to be there just to make sure he took it like a man and he didn't cry.

But she hadn't answered his question. "A little," she admitted.

Her dad raised his eyebrows.

"Okay," she amended, "it hurt a lot. BUT of course I didn't give them the satisfaction of seeing my cry."

Her dad smiled sadly. "That's my girl," he said, pulling her in for a hug.

Her mom still hadn't recovered from the initial shock, and she seemed further horrified by the direction that her husband and daughter's conversation had taken.

With a pang of sadness, Tyler remembered going back to get Billy's name tattooed into the wings. That particular bit of ink was something her parents would never know about. Something no one would ever know about, actually. No one but her. Billy hadn't even known, and now he never would.

But just then a large white truck pulled up, and Tyler recognized it by the roar of its diesel engine before she even turned around and saw her grandfather driving. They parked quickly, and her grandparents got out. Her brothers piled out of the truck immediately after, and all of them ran up to hug Tyler. She couldn't help but smile; she and her oldest brother had always been close, but he'd always rejected her hugs or displays of affection before, and now here he was, running up and throwing his arms around her and nearly tackling her with the force of his hug. When at last she unattached herself from her brothers, she took a moment to hug her grandparents.

This was a family reunion she never would have imagined before she was kidnapped, and it was the kind that she'd never let herself dream of after she'd been taken. But here they were, all laughing and hugging and crying together. There were a lot of smiles, and there were a lot of tears.

Her brothers had all grown a lot since she'd seen them last, and now even the youngest was the same height as she was. They teased her about being short, and she found a smile forming on her lips. It was going to be hard to go back to life with her family, as Billy and the gang would constantly be on her mind. But maybe it wasn't going to be as hard as she'd thought it might.

She sat in the back of the truck with her brothers, giving them all of her attention on the way home. And when they finally got home, she stared in surprise at the unfamiliar house that stood before her; her family had been planning on building it before she was kidnapped, and now it was finished. It was large and beautiful and welcoming, but it wasn't the familiar little mobile home she'd expected to come home to. But either way, it was home now. She was home.


	13. Run

Tyler tiptoed past her brothers' rooms and crept up the stairs. She went running every morning, but since she got up early she'd always avoided waking everyone up, and since she preferred to be alone she'd never told anyone. So she was pretty sure that no one knew she went running at five thirty every morning.

This morning she was itching to get outside. She'd had an especially vivid dream the night before, the kind that she wasn't going to get out of her head until she had on headphones and turned up her iPod all of the way and was running as if her life depended on it.

At first, she'd tried to tell herself that she went jogging every morning. But _jogging_ just wasn't the right word. Jogging was moving just a bit faster than walking, and what she did was run flat out until she could run no more. Was it healthy? No. And she knew it. Was it safe? No. She knew that, as well. But did it work? _Yes_. And that was all that mattered to her.

The first time she'd snuck out just as the sun was peaking over the horizon, she'd reached the half-mile stretch of dirt road she liked and then she'd broken into a sprint. She hadn't done much running during her time in California, and even though she'd exercised in other ways and had been in shape, she wasn't used to running. But she pushed herself and kept going until she fell down because she couldn't take another step. _Chest heaving, lungs burning, legs aching, gasping for breath._ That was the only time she could forget the things she'd seen and relived the night before.

She was better now, much more in shape after two and a half months of being home and running every morning. But she still ran until she couldn't run anymore.

It was one of the few times that she could let emotions out instead of keeping them locked inside like secrets. She often wondered what a sight she'd be if anyone ever drove down the road and caught her, eyes still weary from her restless sleep, chest heaving, cheeks red, tears streaming down her face.

She felt trapped when she was with her family. They wanted her to express what she was feeling, but more than anything they wanted her to be happy and content and to feel safe. They wanted the old Tyler back_._ And as much as she wanted to let out some of her pent-up emotions and talk about her problems, she wanted them to be happy. And they wouldn't be happy if they knew how miserable she was. So she kept it locked inside and didn't say a word about it to anyone. And her secrecy was the reason that she often found herself on her knees in the ditch near the road, half a mile from home. It was why she found herself sobbing and drawing loud, ragged breaths and clawing at the dirt and grass beneath her, searching for something that she could hold onto. Something solid to cling to in the impossible flood that threatened to drag her under and sweep her away.

Every morning she ran. Every morning she collapsed on the ground far away from where anyone would hear her and she cried until no more tears would come. Every morning she wiped away the tears on her face and snuck back into the house to shower and clean up before showing up for breakfast, where no one would have any idea that she'd been out already. Every day she lived her life, helping her family with the ranch and doing chores around the house or playing with her brothers. Every night she would crawl into bed exhausted and curl into a ball, fearing what the night would bring. And every night she dreamt of her time in California, reliving some specific day or week, and the cycle would start all over again.

Tyler and her brothers were homeschooled, and she'd finished high school in the spring, just a few months before she went to California with her dad. So she helped her brothers with their school. One day her mom mentioned college, and Tyler realized that even though her parents were happy to have her home and they wanted to enjoy having her back fully, her mom's dream had always been for her kids to go to college and get good jobs. And even though her mom never mentioned it again, Tyler looked into several different schools, mentioning what she'd found around her mom occasionally.

She only did it to satisfy her mom; she'd been excited about college when she graduated, but now she didn't know if it would be a good idea. On one hand, she could move out and live in the dorms for a year, getting away from her family and their constant need for her to be okay. She wasn't okay, and if she went away to college then there would be no need for her to fake happiness or hide what she was feeling. But on the other hand she didn't know that she was ready to move out of her parents' house and get out on her own. Sure, she'd been on her own in a way when she lived with Billy, but he'd been there and she'd always had him to fall back on. And the gang had protected and accepted her like family. Not to mention that she'd made money and survived primarily by breaking the law when she lived with Billy, whereas she was going to need to get an honest job in order to make money if she moved out.

But the last thing she needed to think about right now was school; she had enough to worry about between putting on a cheerful face and keeping herself and her emotions under control.

Her mom had asked if she wanted to go to therapy, but she had declined. It had been hard not to laugh humorlessly when her mom asked. Tyler knew that her parents still had very strong faith, though she'd been wavering before she was kidnapped and after everything that she'd been through and everything she was feeling, she wasn't sure what she believed in anymore. If there was a god, he didn't sound very nice. Of course, she'd grown up going to church and she knew everything necessary to keep her parents happy and to lie about her faith so that they thought her soul was safe. She knew all of the things about God that seemed important, that were supposed to be great. But she'd been through some hellish experiences. If there was a god, had he forgotten her? Was he intentionally neglecting her? Or were her parents and their church-family confused; was God really the creator, but did he even care about his creation?

She had mused over it so often she was sick of the subject, so she'd stopped thinking about it after a month of being home. If there was a god, then great. He didn't seem to be intruding on her life and her existence, so she wouldn't mess with his.

But Tyler came back to reality at that moment. She was standing by the back door with her hand on the doorknob, having been lost in thought. She started in surprise when she heard a quiet voice coming from the kitchen, just down the hall. It was her mom, and she realized that the older woman was probably on the phone because she was speaking so quietly.

Tyler heard only her mother's half of the conversation, so she didn't know that Suzanne was speaking to the pastor of their church.

"She's so quiet since she came back," Suzanne said. "She still smiles and laughs, and if she gets really into a conversation then she'll talk a lot. But that only lasts so long. It's like we get a glimpse of who she used to be and then she gets quiet again. She seems genuinely happy, but she's always so still and silent. Like she's always thinking."

"Tyler's been through a lot," the pastor said. "She's not the same person she used to be, and I assume she has quite a lot of things to think about."

Suzanne nodded. "I know some changes are to be expected, and she seems happy to be home, but she never asks for anything. She never wants to buy anything other than the bare necessities. She never wants makeup or fancy clothes or new shoes. In fact, she doesn't even wear makeup anymore. And she never asks to go out with friends. As far as I know, her only contact with her friends is at church on Sunday. And she sits with them, but they're all loud and rambunctious just as they've always been, and she's quiet as ever. I understand that she's been through a lot, but it seems like she would miss her friends more than this and be more excited to be with them again."

On the other end of the line, the pastor shrugged. "She was away from home for over two years. She may feel alienated from her friends. Or, even if they've accepted her right back into the group, she probably feels different and as if they don't understand. She's probably taking some time to stand back and observe things from afar before jumping back in."

"I know, I know," Suzanne said. "But, it's just . . . she used to be such a social butterfly, you know? She had so many friends and she was so involved with the church and the youth group, and now she never even wants to leave the property."

She hadn't listened in on a conversation like this in quite a while, and the only other time was right after she got back, when her parents had banished the kids to the basement so they could talk. Her brothers had quickly gotten involved in playing video games, and they hadn't noticed when she slipped back up the stairs and leaned against the door to listen. Her mom and dad had been discussing how they were going to go about introducing her back into the family, as her oldest brother had been given her room and her belongings had been moved out of the house. Then they'd started to talk about whether they should try and push her to leave the house and get back into her old life or not, and that was when she'd stopped listening and gone to her room.

But that had been months before, and this was now. Tyler hadn't heard a word from the pastor, but she heard everything her mom said. It was hard to hear that her mom was disappointed in her. But what hurt the most was that no one knew just how hard she was trying and how much effort she was putting into keeping her family and friends happy and satisfied.

Biting her lip, she turned her back on the kitchen and her whispering mother and quietly pushed the door open, closing it silently behind her and circling around the house so that she could avoid the kitchen window.

She usually waited until she'd reached the dirt road before she started running, but today she needed to get away from her thoughts, and she needed to get away fast. So she broke into a run before she'd even moved far from the house, and she put on her headphones and cranked up the music.

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	14. Two Kinds of Pain

Billy walked into the Four Roses and took a seat around a table with the rest of the guys. He glanced around at them, snatched a drink from the center of the table, and downed a shot. The liquid burned his throat on its way down, but he hardly noticed. He looked down as he set the glass back on the table, and his eyes found his forearm, exposed because he had pushed the sleeves of his dark shirt up to his elbows. The curls of ink that blackened his skin there stood out to him in a new way, in a way that had only started since she left.

He stared down at the curls in his right arm, noticing for probably the millionth time the way that the very tips of the ink looked almost exactly like the very tips of those damn feathers. The feathers that made up Tyler's wings. Strange, he thought, how they'd all called her Angel when she was there, but now he thought of her only as Tyler.

They never talked about her. The only time they had was when they went to the hospital and found him awake, and when they explained what they'd told her and that she was staying at the apartment for only one more night before she left. Bodi had already had his phone out, ready to call and tell her that Billy was alive, that everything had changed, but Billy had made it clear immediately that none of them were to contact Tyler. The guys had all stood there, around the bed, staring at Billy in confusion. He hadn't explained himself no matter how many times they asked or made it apparent that they didn't understand, but they'd done as he asked—or rather, as he ordered—and none of the guys ever talked to Tyler or tried to stop her from leaving.

The guys who had been there when Billy was shot demanded to know how he was alive, and he'd explained as best he could. When Billy had been shot he'd fallen to the ground, unmoving but still conscious. The members of the Hall who were there were still shooting even after Billy went down, though, so his guys couldn't get there to see if he was alive until quite a while later, when the Hall had left. By the time they got to him he'd bled so much that he was unconscious, and they thought he was dead.

So they took him to the local crematorium. And they left him there, along with a number for the clerk to call when Billy Darley was nothing but a box of ashes. Then they'd gone back to the meth lab, where Tyler walked in and found out what had happened.

Billy found out that Tyler had led the gang in killing every last member of the Hall, and he couldn't help but swell with pride when he heard. Then the guys told him what they'd told Tyler, and how she'd said her goodbyes and how she'd left.

But not long after she'd turned a corner and disappeared for the last time, when the guys were standing around, staring at the place she'd gone and remembering the first time they'd ever seen her, Bodi got a phone call. It was his number that they'd left with the clerk at the crematorium. One of his guys had been preparing Billy to be burned when he realized that Billy was breathing. They called for an ambulance first, and then they called Bodi.

Then the guys went to the hospital not knowing if they would find Billy dead or alive. But he'd already had a blood transfusion and was wide awake when they got there. They had discussed on their way to the hospital whether to call Tyler and tell her that Billy was alive, but they eventually decided they would worry about whether to call once they'd seen Billy. None of them wanted to risk calling her and then have her rush to the hospital, only to arrive after Billy had died or when he was slipping away.

And when they'd arrived, Billy had refused to let them call her.

Getting shot had hurt, and so had waking up in a hospital with some random fucker's blood being poured into his veins. But that pain was temporary, and it had been dulled by meds. And now he was feeling a different kind of pain, the kind that he had been feeling ever since he got home after three days in the hospital. That was when it really hit him that she was gone. This pain was something that couldn't be dulled or healed. No amount of drugs or alcohol could properly get her off of his mind, and nothing he did kept her out of his thoughts for long.

But now Billy looked up, realizing that all eyes were on him because he'd been lost in thought and hadn't responded when one of the guys said something. He raised his eyebrows, asking them to repeat it. And Heco did repeat it, but already his voice was something dull, a quiet noise in the background of Billy's returning thoughts.

It was torture. He thought of her often, wondered every other moment where she was, what she was doing. Had she jumped back into her old life with ease? Did she remember her time with him, or was she trying to forget? Had she started college classes? Was she happy? Did he ever cross her mind?

But the real kicker was that he thought about her and wondered about her so often, when he knew she'd never wonder about him. How could she? She thought he was dead. She didn't think he was still around, so she wouldn't wonder what he was doing or whether he was alright.

Of course, Billy would never admit it to anyone else, but deep down inside he realized that he really did worry about her. She'd said that she lived outside of a small town and that where she lived there were a bunch of country people. Crimes weren't a common occurrence where she lived, so Billy assumed that she'd be safe enough. And at the same time, he couldn't let go of the panic that gripped him every time he realized once again that she was alive, somewhere, far away from him, and that he wasn't there to keep her safe. Hell yes, he worried about her. And the worry threatened to eat him alive. Sure, she wasn't in any danger of being shot or stuck with a knife by some gang, but there were everyday things that he'd never considered dangerous until now.

Billy couldn't understand why he couldn't just forget her. Sure, they'd lived together for nearly three years. Sure, she'd known him more intimately and had known more of his secrets than any member of the gang. Sure, she'd made him laugh and she'd soothed his hurts and she'd been his best friend. She would have done anything for him, and she had; she'd looked the opportunity to go home in the eye and she'd walked away from it, she'd joined a gang and gotten wings tattooed on her back, hell, she'd even killed for him.

But Billy's idea of love and what it meant was twisted, deformed after many years of his abusive father's claims to love him. His idea of love had been all but destroyed when his mother died, and when her death drove his father nearly to madness. All he'd had in the world had been Joe. Joe and a group of men who he'd grown up with and considered to be brothers. But even they weren't always dependable, and over the years Billy had built himself armor. Armor that he didn't remove even in the presence of his closest friends. Until Tyler. But he didn't realize that she'd somehow snuck under his armor, had no idea just how close to his heart she'd managed to get.

He'd tried to drown his pain in copious amounts of alcohol. It hadn't worked. So he turned to drugs. Anything he could get his hands on that would take him away from reality. It hadn't worked.

Then, one night, he got so desperate that he tried another woman. He hadn't hooked up with a whore since he'd bought Tyler, but suddenly it seemed like it might be a good idea. But that turned out to be the worst idea he'd ever had. She'd shown up, and was sitting on his lap and pulling her shirt over her head when he had to look away. This was all wrong. She was beautiful, no doubt about it. But she wasn't Tyler. And there were so many things that Billy had loved about Tyler and the way that she acted during sex. She was innocent when he bought her, but even when he took her virginity he didn't take her innocence. Even the last time they'd slept together she'd managed to know exactly how to please him while still maintaining an air of innocence.

He'd sent the whore away immediately. And he hadn't looked at another woman the same way since. He had no idea that over a thousand miles away, Tyler was missing him just as much. And she couldn't look at any guy without automatically and subconsciously comparing him to Billy. And none of them were good enough. If they weren't Billy, she didn't want them. And there was only one Billy. And as far as she knew, he was dead.

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	15. Pariah

Tyler sighed and leaned back against a pillow, frowning at the screen of her laptop. She was on Facebook again, and she'd only just re-made the old account that she'd had once upon a time and her parents had deleted. It had been about six months since she came home, and the dramatic, whiney posts her fellow teens were making seemed to get more needy and stupid the longer she was home. She hadn't wanted to create another Facebook account, but her mom had insisted. And she hadn't wanted to friend ninety-nine percent of the people whose posts now graced her dash, but she hadn't had a choice in the matter.

But then she tensed, looking away from the screen and listening hard. Something had moved outside of her bedroom door, she was sure of it. She couldn't see anything beyond her glowing laptop screen, but she heard the door—which was unlocked and slightly ajar—being pushed open just a bit. She half-closed her laptop so that she could see, and she watched as the family cat, Pickles, walked in and went under her bed. So it was the cat. Big deal.

She silently berated herself for still being so jumpy, even at home when they were so many miles away from the closest town. No one was going to sneak in and try to kill her in her sleep, and while it had been a very real danger in California, here it was just silly. So she turned back to her laptop, opening it and putting her headphones on in an attempt to ignore the dark room around her. It was just the cat. Everyone else in the house was asleep. There was no reason for the hair on the back of her neck to be rising as if there was something to fear. This was stupid. She was being stupid.

But her opinion changed entirely when something touched her leg. In an instant she had whipped off her headphones and jumped off her bed, tackling the stranger and pinning them to the floor. She waited for her eyes to adjust, but before they had the intruder coughed and then said in a familiar voice, "Whoa. Relax. It's me. It's just James. You know, the guy who used to be your best friend?"

Her eyes adjusted as he spoke, and she released him, drawing away from him quickly. She frowned at him in the darkness, but it was too dark for either of them to see anything more than the vaguest shape of each other's faces.

Three years before if James had snuck into her house and surprised her in the middle of the night, she'd have greeted him with a smile and they'd have sat around talking for hours. He had been her best friend. But now she clenched her teeth and growled through them, "What the hell are you doing here?"

She saw the whites of his eyes when he widened them, startled when she used _the H word_. She had been so careful over the past few months to never swear or use lingo that she'd learned from the gang. Not even a single _crap_ had escaped her lips. But here she was, swearing in front of the boy who used to be her best friend. And there he was, standing there with what she imagined must be an expression of confusion and disappointment.

Tyler was caught off guard by the guilt that suddenly filled her. "I-I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to . . ."

But James was shaking his head. He moved over to her bed and sat down just inside the glow from the laptop screen. He patted the bed beside him and said, "You were around a lot of that, huh? When you were there, I mean."

Tyler hesitated for a moment, and then she seated herself on the bed, though he had patted a place near him and she left at least a foot of space between them. "Yeah," was all she said.

He nodded a few times, and then turned his head to look at her. "I haven't seen you in a while, so I thought I'd drop by."

Tyler raised her eyebrows. "At one in the morning?" she asked, feeling the slightest of smiles as it tried to draw up one corner of her mouth.

James shrugged. "It's been a while, and tonight I decided I couldn't wait any longer."

"So you snuck in," Tyler summarized.

"And was nearly killed," he added.

"Not true," Tyler said. "I wasn't aiming to kill you. I just wanted to gain control of the situation."

"You wanted to tackle me, and _then_ you were going to kill me," he said.

Tyler shrugged. Then she turned to face him again and asked, "Do my parents know you're here?"

He opened his mouth to answer, but just then someone switched on the light in her room, and even though both of them covered their eyes, momentarily blinded, they heard her mom say, "We know now."

When Tyler and James had blinked and rubbed away their blindness, they squinted at the doorway, where Tyler's parents stood. Her dad had his arms crossed and her mom looked stern, and for a moment Tyler thought she was about to get a severe scolding for having a boy in her room in the middle of the night.

But what happened was quite the opposite.

Her dad broke into a grin and her mom smiled. "Hi, James," she said.

"Hey," he said in a small voice, clearly afraid of what was going to happen.

"Well," Suzanne said, glancing at her husband to be sure he agreed with her, "we heard someone creeping down the stairs and decided to investigate. But if it's only you"–she smiled at James-"then forget we ever intruded."

And with that, they stepped back into the hall, closing the door behind them. Tyler's jaw dropped as she heard them going back down the hall. _What the hell was that?_ If her parents had discovered a boy in her room before the whole California episode, they would quite possibly grounded her for a year and forbidden her from ever seeing the boy again. But now they seemed so pleased to find that she was doing _normal teenager things_ that they didn't mind. Of course, it _was_ James, and he was the pastor's son. Her parents probably didn't think James and Tyler would do anything but talk for a while. And they were right.

They probably expected him to stay the night, whether he slept out on the couch or on the top bunk of Tyler's bunk-bed. But Tyler had different plans. She answered James's questions and promised him that she would be at church on Sunday morning, and then she made him leave. It was a Friday night, so he didn't have school the next day, but she still wanted him to get home before his parents discovered that he'd snuck out to see a girl. And she was sure it would be worse if they found out that he'd snuck out to meet her.

It was fascinating to her, how the church welcomed her back. They all treated her carefully, as if a single word that wasn't spoken in the gentlest voice could cause her to shatter. All of the women of the church had approached her and assured her that they were praying for her, and they all asked if she had any specific prayer requests.

When the women were just talking to her, they were friendly and kind. But when the mothers of boys Tyler's age found out that their sons were Tyler's friends, they started to act differently. It was as if, on one hand, they wanted to support Tyler and assure her that she was still just a normal girl and that there was nothing wrong with her, and on the other hand they wanted her to stay far away from their boys because she was defiled and dirty from her experiences. And God forbid she defile their good, innocent Christian boys.

Even James's mom had made it clear that he was off-limits, but Tyler didn't really care. She wasn't interested in James in that way. In fact, the sad truth was that she wasn't even really interested in James as a friend. It was fun to laugh with him and talk with him like they had so often once upon a time. But even though they'd once been incredibly close and shared even their deepest secrets, now there was something between them. Tyler's experiences in California had opened a canyon between them, a black void that was unable to be filled or mended. For the most part, James seemed afraid to ask about what she'd been through in California. And when he wasn't afraid, she didn't want to give him the answers.

Part of her wanted to tell him the truth, to let everything out and tell him every single thing that had _actually_ happened. But another part of her knew that it was wiser to keep her mouth shut. She was doing him a favor by not mending their friendship, even if he didn't know it. She was keeping them both safe from unnecessary pain, and if his mother knew about it then she'd thank Tyler. But of course no one could ever know.

Saturday came and passed, and on Sunday morning Tyler went to church with her family. She wore something simple, just as she always did; jeans she'd rolled up into capris, black and white striped flats, and a striped black and white shirt. This was a shirt she'd never worn to church before because it was sleeveless, and she knew that the tops of her wings would be visible above the fabric. But for the first time in a long time, she didn't care. Her mom expressed her distaste of Tyler's choice in clothing, but she didn't press the matter far enough to make Tyler change.

So they went to church. Things had been so different since she got back. Before California, Tyler had walked in and only her friends and a few friendly adults would notice her and acknowledge her presence. But now when her family walked in, it seemed like everyone was looking. Her family was uncomfortable with it, so after about a month of dealing with the stares Tyler started to enter the building a few steps ahead of her family or a few steps behind in order to spare them the discomfort. She, on the other hand, didn't mind at all. Before California, she'd been very shy and didn't like it when people stared at her. But now she could care less. If they wanted to stare, let them. If they wanted to talk about her behind her back, let them. If they wanted to form opinions on whether she was a bad influence on other teens because of what she'd been through, then let them. She was beyond caring at this point.

But today things intensified. Tyler waited until her parents and brothers had entered the church and the door had closed behind them before she walked up the steps and went inside. Everyone stared at her as usual, but they didn't stop staring as soon as they usually did. They used to stare until she'd passed them, and then they'd force themselves to look away. But today they would just be preparing to look away when they caught sight of the ink on her shoulder blades, and then they couldn't help but stare. Jaws dropped, eyes widened, and someone even dropped their Bible in surprise.

Tyler felt like a pariah. Hell, she _was_ a pariah. But she didn't mind. These people thought she was something else. And they were right. She'd wielded guns and knives when there were children in the room. She'd killed people. And she'd willingly had sex with a man who was seven years older than her. Of course, these people didn't know that. They didn't know that in three years, she'd done more damage in the world than any of them had probably done in their entire lives. They didn't know that she had enjoyed her life in California. They didn't know how much she missed it.

In some ways, she was quite possibly some of their worst nightmares in the shape of an eighteen-year-old girl. She was a killer. Her back was permanently painted with a set of wings—and, unbeknownst to them, the name of the man she loved. She was a member of a gang (she'd never officially left). She had learned how to properly create and sell illegal drugs. She'd lived in an apartment with a man who had purchased her as a slave and then raped her, and she'd done it willingly. She had turned down the opportunity to go home and live a regular life, just so she could stay with a malicious, alcoholic, murdering gang-member. She'd fallen in love with that man. She'd killed for him. And now he was dead, and she spent nearly every moment of every day wishing that she could have kept him home that day. And if she could have brought him back, she would have done whatever it took.

But none of these people knew that Billy Darley had ever even existed. And right now none of them cared because they were all staring at her back.

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	16. The Call

Tyler was haunted. It had been a year since she'd come home, and she'd thought that things might be different now. But they weren't. She could still remember everything that had happened to her perfectly, and the images that often flashed before her eyes were painfully vivid. She missed Billy. _Obviously_. But she also missed her life in California as a whole. She missed the gang. She missed the routine she and Billy had settled into. She missed her lace-up boots and her old clothes and her dark makeup. She missed living with Billy. She missed the times when her life had been in danger but she'd been unafraid.

But she missed the little things more than anything else. She missed the way Billy used to kiss her. She missed the way he'd hook his arm around her waist and pull her against him as he slept. She missed the way he'd been so fiercely protective of her. She missed waking up the morning and looking up at the ceiling of their bedroom. She missed making meals in the kitchen she could call her own. She missed answering the phone. She missed being called "Angel." She missed having a place and a car and a life of her own. Hell, she even missed Bones and the crazy-ass jobs he'd given them. She missed the heat of California. She missed the graffiti-filled halls and rooms of the ancient buildings where she and the gang had worked.

She missed alcohol. She missed the burning in her throat when she swallowed something strong. She missed the taste of beer. And now, at home, there was no way in hell her parents were letting her anywhere near even the most mild of drinks. Of course, they had no idea that she'd started drinking when she was in California, but they probably suspected that she'd been around it and didn't want anything to do with it.

She supposed that her parents suspected a lot of things. They assumed a lot of things that weren't true, and never came anywhere near guessing the truth. But it was better that way, for both Tyler and her parents.

It was June twenty-fifth. Exactly one year ago, Tyler had walked in and found the guys waiting around. Exactly one year ago, Billy had been killed. Exactly one year ago, she had led the guys in completely obliterating the Hall. And exactly one year ago, she'd gone back to the apartment alone. She'd slept alone. She'd cried alone. And she'd prepared to go home.

Her parents didn't know that, though. The date they wanted to celebrate was in four days, June twenty-ninth, the day they brought Tyler home.

But Tyler had other things than celebration on her mind. She'd survived a year without Billy, without the gang. She'd managed to last an entire year of being home. Not a day had passed without her thinking of Billy. Not a night passed without her being tormented by dreams of her life in California.

But she was brought back to reality when her mom said her name.

"Are you sure you don't want to come?" Suzanne was asking.

Tyler nodded. "I'm sure," she said. She noticed the concerned frown on her mother's face and said, "Mom, I'll be fine."

"What are you gonna do all day while we're gone?" her mom asked, sounding worried. You'd think that the idea of leaving her eighteen-year-old daughter at home alone for the day was just as terrifying to her as the idea of leaving her standing alone in the middle of nowhere. And maybe it was that terrifying. Tyler could understand that, but she didn't have the time or the patience to be sympathetic.

"I was thinking I could draw or paint for a while. Maybe I'll start writing again."

Her mom's eyes lit up when she mentioned writing; Tyler's passion before she was kidnapped had been creative writing. She'd loved to make up stories, and she'd even planned on someday publishing some of her work. Her mom was obviously thrilled at the idea of Tyler going back and picking up her old hobby. "Alright," she said, leaning down to kiss Tyler on the head. "I guess you can stay." Then she walked towards the door, but she turned around just before she went through it and said fervently, "I love you. Be safe." Then she left.

When she'd closed the door Tyler whispered, "Relax. I'm not going anywhere," to herself.

Ever since she'd come back she'd noticed new things that had appeared in her family's behavior. Now, whenever any of them were leaving, even if only for ten minutes, they would part with the words, "I love you. Be safe." Always. It was always the same and it as much gas Tyler wanted to be okay with it, she wasn't. They had started saying it because when their daughter had been taken they'd apparently come to the conclusion that any parting with each other could be their last. And while Tyler thought that it was a deep, interesting thought and a meaningful epiphany, it annoyed her. Her being kidnapped in the first place had been incredibly unlikely, and the odds of anything like that to happen to any of her family members were definitely in their favor.

And _honestly_, what did her mom think was going to happen to her if she spent the day at home alone? No one was going to break in. No one was going to kidnap her. No one was going to hurt her. If anything, she was going to go insane, but that would be of her own accord, and that was also unlikely.

Sighing, she went downstairs and entered her room. She glanced at the walls around her, where quite a few pieces of art she'd made since she'd gotten home were hanging for her viewing pleasure. There were watercolors of the sun sinking below the horizon, something she'd painted as she watched the sunset one evening from the back deck on their house. Her parents had called it beautiful, but it was mostly oranges and reds and all she could think of when she looked at it—and all she had thought of as she painted it—was one word; _blood_. Most of her paintings were colorful, and then there were a handful of pencil or charcoal sketches of animals or landscapes that she'd done. Her family thought that the artwork on her walls was the only art she'd done since she'd gotten home.

But they were wrong.

Reaching under her mattress, Tyler's fingers closed around a sketchbook that was all her own. Since she'd gotten back, she'd filled it with art. But she'd never shared the contents of this book with anyone else. These pictures were for her only, and they would surely alarm any member of her family who saw them.

She sat down on her bed and opened the sketchbook to the first page. There on the sheet of white before her was the face of a man. A man with some facial features similar to Billy's, but it was not the face of Billy Darley. After a few months of being home, she'd woken up one night around three in the morning after an especially vivid dream. Unable to go back to sleep, she'd tossed and turned for another half-hour before she got up and turned on her lights and got out an empty sketchbook. Then she'd tried to draw Billy, and the picture she was looking at now had been the result. Furious with herself for failing to draw him, she'd spent the next few months sketching in secret, feverishly trying to capture the face that haunted her nightmares and put it down on paper. And just that day, on June twenty-fifth, at three in the morning and when the day was still new, she'd succeeded.

She flipped through the pages, observing her slow, painstaking progress. She'd gotten better little by little, slowly started to get things right. Here, his nose would be just the nose she knew he'd had. A few pages later his eyes stared up at her. The page after that they were lost again, but little by little she managed to figure out how to draw certain pieces of his face, and then she'd worked on putting them all together.

On the last page of the sketchbook was her final sketch. And there, staring up at her, was the still, flawless, black and white face of Billy Darley.

She had been able to picture him easily enough, but taking the image in her mind and putting it on paper with a pencil and then with ink had been quite the challenge. And yet there he was, staring up at her with bright, glinting eyes. His eyelashes were long, but his face was still masculine. His nose was the perfect straight-edge one she'd noticed the day she first met him. One of his eyebrows was quirked ever-so-slightly, exactly as he'd done every time he turned his attention from someone else to her because she'd started to speak. One corner of his mouth was curved upward in the slightest of crooked smiles, as if she'd said something that amused him but they were in public and he couldn't act too impressed. He looked dangerous, malicious even. The smile on his face could have been a cruel one or the kind of smile she'd seen him wear before he pulled the trigger and ended a life. And she knew that if anyone else saw the picture, they would see only evil and cruelty and danger in his face. But when she looked at it she saw so much more. She saw the smile in his eyes and the slight crinkle in his brow. She saw his eyelashes and his pursed lips. She saw the man she loved. She saw _home_.

When she'd finished the drawing that morning, she'd closed her eyes and taken a deep breath before she looked over it as a whole. She hadn't known if she could bear it if there was something wrong with this picture, the last in her book. But she looked and there he was, staring up at her without a single flaw.

And for a moment, she'd just sat there, staring down in amazement at the book in her lap. She'd smiled, even laughed a little, too shocked to do anything else. And then her face had crumpled and just like that her smile was gone, and she'd bitten her lip. Then her eyes had started welling up with tears, and her vision had blurred. That was when she'd quickly but carefully closed the sketchbook and placed it back under her mattress, safe and away from the tears that had begun to stream down her face.

But now she didn't cry. Extra liquid built in her eyes, but she blinked away the tears before they could escape and slide down her cheeks. She swallowed, smiling sadly down at the face in her lap. What she wouldn't give to have him lying there on her bed with his head in her lap. She could picture it happening, could imagine the way he'd act.

_He would sit there, beside her, probably looking around her room and shaking his head. He might smile at her art, but he'd be amused by the bright colored walls and bedding. He might turn and brush her hair behind her ear. She would scoot away from him and pat her lap, telling him to lie down. He would raise an eyebrow questioningly, maybe even hesitate for a few seconds, but after a while he'd comply. He'd lie down, resting his head in her lap and staring up at her curiously. The smallest of smiles would turn up the corners of his mouth and shape his lips into a perfect smirk. _

_His smile would fade and he'd search her face for some kind of explanation when she let her fingertips trace his jawline. He wouldn't have any hair for her to run her fingers through, so she'd settle for tracing the tattoos that curved up his neck and behind his ears. _

She came back to reality after that, quietly closing the sketchbook and setting it on the bed beside her. There had been moments between them. Moments that had been romantic and sweet, in a way. Billy was no hopeless romantic, but towards the end of her time in California he seemed to really start opening up to her. He'd started doing things. Little things, things she wouldn't have noticed if she hadn't been longing for them for so very long. He'd tuck a stray lock of hair behind her ear, or he'd stare at her for a moment before brushing her cheek with the back of his fingers. He'd hug her from behind and set his chin on the top of her head, just standing there with his arms around her, letting her lean back against him. He would walk up and put his hands on her shoulders, leaning down and resting his forehead against hers so he could stare into her eyes.

Those little things had been few and far between, happening very rarely. But they'd given Tyler a glimpse of the side of Billy that wasn't as hard and independent and cold as he wanted everyone to think. She'd never gotten a piggy-back ride from him or touched his face when his head was in her lap, but she'd often imagined it. And for a while it had seemed like someday those things could happen. And then he'd been killed and everything had changed.

Sighing, she stowed her sketchbook back in its place under her mattress and she went for her acrylic paints and the easel that stood in the corner. She'd passed several wild morning glories that morning on her run, and she decided to paint them. She'd have to have some masterpiece finished by the time her family got home in order to placate her mother.

When she'd finished the painting, she pulled out her laptop. It had been forever since she'd gone on Microsoft Word, but today was a day for changing forever. Then she went through her files, scanning her folders of stories and ideas for books. She chose a random one and frowned when the document required a password in order to be viewed. Leaning back, she thought hard about the name of the document and tried to remember what the password was. After a few tries she managed to get it right, and she spent the next few minutes reading the few pages she'd types out years before.

She was interested enough in going back and reading the things she'd written in the past, but for the most part she wasn't interested in writing anything new or adding to her previous works. Then she came to the last story in one of her writing folders and found that she'd already written some fifty pages. She read through it quickly, and by the time she'd reached the end she had some inspiration and a vague idea of how she'd planned on continuing the story. So she started typing. An hour later she had written another few pages and was rereading them to correct any mistakes she'd made.

Writing again felt good. It was nice to be able to get away in a world all her own, a world she'd created. Maybe she still wanted to write. Maybe she could do this for a living someday. She wouldn't have to leave the house every day to go to work, her schedule could be flexible, and she could do something she loved. It was an idea, anyway.

But after another hour of writing and an apple for lunch, she was bored with writing. So she turned off her laptop and set it aside on her desk. She sat on her bed, letting out her breath if a puff of air and leaning her head back against the wall behind her.

And she started to think. Thinking too much nowadays was dangerous, as her thoughts always wandered to Billy and the gang and California. And today was no different. After a few minutes of thinking about a writing career she started to wonder what the gang was doing. Where was Bodi? Was he even still alive? Anything could have happened to him and the guys in the past year. One or all of them could have been caught, could have been arrested. Or all of them could be safe and sound, still dealing drugs and paying a different prostitute every night.

And then she started to wonder about the apartment. What had happened to it? She'd left her clothes and her belongings there for Bodi or the guys to go through as they pleased, and Billy's things were there too. Had the gang cleaned it out or had it all been tossed out or taken by the owner of the apartment? Was someone new living there?

She still remembered the phone number. When she and Billy lived there, the landline had been used very rarely because they did most of their business on their cellphones. How often was it used now? Had it been disconnected?

She could always call and see.

She remembered the apartment number, and she remembered Bodi's cellphone number. He might not even have the same phone, and he might have a different number. But right now she was focused on the apartment phone. If she called, who would pick up? Maybe one of the guys had moved in and she'd hear a familiar voice when they answered.

She tried to tell herself that it was a bad idea. She tried to remind herself how slim a chance it was that she'd recognize the voice on the other end of the line. But no matter how slim the chance, there was still a _chance_. And that was enough to drive her out of her room and into the game room, the main room in the basement. She didn't have a cellphone because she never went anywhere. But they had two phones in the house so that if their parents were outside or unavailable and the kids were downstairs, none of them would have to run up stairs and through the house to answer it.

She snatched up the cordless phone and sat down on the couch, realizing that she had started to tremble. Ignoring the memories of being afraid when she'd first been kidnapped that flooded her mind, she stared down at the phone for only a moment before she dialed the number.

It rang. Once. Then again. Halfway through the third ring, someone picked up. Tyler held her breath.

"Yeah?" a man answered.

Tyler dropped the phone.

The voice on the other end was a familiar one. She stared down at the phone, too shocked to remember to hit the _end_ button.

"Hello?" the man asked. There was a pause, and then he hung up.

Tyler covered her mouth with both hands.

The voice was Billy's.

Page | 5


	17. Understanding

She didn't know what was real and what was all just something she'd imagined. She kept telling herself, over and over, that she had spent the day home alone and she'd never once picked up the phone. When that failed, she started telling herself that she hadn't really heard Billy's voice and that she was hoping too hard. When that didn't work, she told herself that a man had, indeed, picked up the phone, but that it wasn't Billy. She told herself that their voices were just very similar.

But whether or not Billy Darley had actually answered the phone, she decided that at the moment it was not important. She needed to get out of there, needed to get away from her family and her parents and out on her own. They wanted her to be happy. But she wasn't. And they wanted it so bad and she didn't want to disappoint them, and she had to leave. She had to be someplace where no one would care if she was happy, where she could be herself. She didn't want to tell anyone that she was unhappy, didn't need to shout it to the world or anything. But she just needed a break. She needed to be able to _be unhappy_. And if she was going to keep her family happy then she couldn't let herself be unhappy.

She spent the remaining time she had home alone to plan out exactly how she'd break it to her parents. She would give them another week of peace, would wait until after their little celebration of having her home for a year. She didn't think she could last longer than a week. So she waited, patiently planning.

And in a week, she told them.

She phrased it gently, telling them that she'd secretly been looking at colleges and had chosen one in California. She told them that she was going to start classes in the fall, and she was going to take writing classes and chase her dream and try to use her passion to make a living.

Her parents were, of course, devastated. But they were also thrilled. She was eighteen, and even though they wanted her at home they were obviously pleased to know that she was moving out and moving on.

But then they expected her to leave in the fall, just before classes started. And she had to tell them that she wanted to leave _now_. When they demanded to know why she had to leave right then and couldn't wait at least a month, she lied and said she wanted to settle in and get a job before classes started. The reality was that she couldn't stand another month living with them. But of course she couldn't tell them that.

At last, they acquiesced. They had promised, long ago, even before she was kidnapped, that when she moved out they would give her a beautiful old red Chevy truck her dad had rebuilt years before. And they tried to give it to her now. But she refused to accept it.

"I'll get a rental," she insisted. "I can't take the red truck."

Her parents had insisted, but she hadn't given in.

"I want to start from the ground up," she said. "I need to."

She had a bank account that they'd made when she was a baby, and now it held about fifteen grand. It was enough to get her started. Her mom argued that if she didn't have a truck, she wouldn't be able to take any of her belongings with her. But Tyler only shook her head. She didn't want to take everything in her room with her to California. The things she owned here were not really hers, not anymore. They didn't feel like home. She only wanted to take a suitcase of clothes and belongings.

She and her mom argued for quite some time, but when she said she only wanted to take a suitcase she could see her dad's expression softening. Somehow, even after all these years and everything that had happened, even though they didn't ever really talk anymore, he _understood_ her. He still got her the way he used to, and he still had her back.

Her mom was just opening her mouth to continue the argument when her dad cut in with, "Sounds good to me."

Suzanne looked at her husband, a shocked expression on her face. She widened her eyes and shook her head at him, but he looked to Tyler.

"Suz," he said, addressing his wife, "She's eighteen. She's moving out. We aren't in control of her or her life anymore. The least we can do is support what she wants to do and let her know that if she needs anything all she has to do is ask."

Tyler smiled her thanks to her dad. "I could use a suitcase," she started to say.

Her dad nodded. "Great," he said. "Let's go get one. Or two, if you want."

"Now?" Tyler and her mom chorused, both of them surprised.

"Now," he said. "If . . . that's okay?"

Tyler couldn't hide her smile. "Sounds good."

She and her dad went suitcase shopping, picking up a few things for her trip as well. She was going to fly out of the local airport, the very same tiny one they'd flown into when they brought her home. They bought a large suitcase and a good-sized bag that she could take as a carry-on.

When they got home Tyler went straight to her room and started packing, leaving her parents standing in the kitchen. "Thanks, Daddy," she said before she grabbed her new bags and darted down the stairs.

She didn't see the tears that welled up in her dad's eyes; she hadn't called him _Daddy_ since before she'd been kidnapped. And she wasn't doing it now to get him to buy her things. She was doing it because the connection, the bond that they'd had before, was showing up and proving that it hadn't ever actually gone away.

Tyler packed two outfits and set out the one she would wear on the plane. She didn't pack any shoes, setting out a pair of sneakers for the plane. Then she packed a small bag of toiletries and stowed that in her suitcase, which she hadn't yet even filled halfway. She threw in a couple of pairs of socks and underwear, and an extra bra. Then she snatched her small box of art supplies, which she nestled next to the bag of toiletries. She set her laptop and it's charging card in on top of the other things, and then she zipped the suitcase closed.

Then she looked around her room. There were a lot of things she could have packed in the suitcase, but nothing really caught her eye. She put her wallet and her iPod into the carry-on bag, along with her camera and the charging cords for both. She set the pair of headphones in as well. Then she turned to her bed, carefully sliding the secret sketchbook out from under the mattress. She put it in the bag and looked around carefully, just one more time.

Then she set the suitcase in the corner with the bag on top of it. She would leave the following morning.

Page | 2


	18. California

This was it. She was on a plane, headed south. She was going back to California with two bags of belongings and fifteen thousand dollars to her name. She was going home.

She sat in the window seat on the plane, right behind the wing. It wasn't that long of a flight, considering some of the places she could have chosen to go. But she'd already wasted an hour with her headphones on and her music turned up, so she took them off and stowed them in her bag. The woman sitting beside her had been napping for a while, but she was awake when Tyler glanced at her.

But Tyler ignored her, reaching into her bag and pulling out her sketchbook for at least the tenth time since the flight had started. It seemed only right to spend some time gazing down at Billy's picture and remembering exactly why she was going back.

She wasn't going back so that she could knock on the door of the apartment that used to be her home. She wasn't going back to bother whoever had answered the phone when she'd called. No. But she _was_ going back for the gang. She was going back because her family's definition of _home life_ was not for her. She wasn't going back for classes. But she was going back because it was where she felt she belonged. She was going to do some writing and some art, and see where that got her. She was going to find out if the boys had spread Billy's ashes somewhere, and if they had then she was going to go visit him.

But she was torn from her thoughts when she opened the book to the last page. Billy stared up at her, intimidating and beautiful.

She tore her gaze away from his face, however, when the woman beside her nudged her arm. She looked up questioningly.

The woman's eyes were wide, and she was staring at the paper in Tyler's lap. "Did you do that?" she asked.

Tyler nodded once, and the woman's eyes left the drawing only long enough to see her nod.

"Wow," she said. "Who is he?"

Tyler felt her breath catch in her throat. No one knew about Billy except her. No one she'd met or seen since leaving California. "An old friend," she said after a moment.

"Ah," the woman said. She was still studying the drawing. "Did he sit in front of you while you sketched, or did you sketch from a photo?"

"A photo," Tyler lied. Telling the woman that she'd done it from memory would result in her having to show the rest of the pages of the sketchbook, which would result in the woman thinking Tyler was obsessive and possibly insane.

"Wow," she said again.

Tyler nodded again, but the woman wasn't listening.

"Sorry, but . . ." she hesitated, "he looks kind of angry . . . and amused . . . and . . . huh."

Tyler smiled sadly and said nothing.

She glanced out the window, feeling invaded with her neighbor staring at the drawing of Billy. She'd meant to spend some time gazing at him, but it felt wrong, as if her privacy had been invaded when the woman looked.

"He's intimidating," the woman said, causing Tyler to look back to her. She paused, looking hard at the drawing as if thinking about what to say. "Intimidating," she repeated, "but . . . beautiful." She reached out, and Tyler instinctively drew the sketchbook closer to herself and away from the invading hand of the woman. But her neighbor didn't seem to notice that she'd flinched away. Instead, she just asked, "Are his eyes like that in real life? His eyelashes, I mean?"

"Yeah," Tyler said, swallowing and biting her lip at the ache that rose in her chest when she pictured Billy's beautiful eyes. She'd noticed them the first day they met. She'd thought they were beautiful even then, even back when he was an enemy and she didn't trust him.

It took another five minutes of staring before the woman finally looked away, seeming to have lost interest. Tyler knew she should be flattered that her art had held someone's attention for so long, but she still felt invaded. She sighed down at the picture on her lap. "God," she muttered to the drawing, "I miss you."

Then she closed the sketchbook and put it back in her bag, pulling out her iPod and her headphones again. The ache that had risen in her earlier had been dull at first, but now it was throbbing and she wanted to forget it. So she turned up the volume and tried to lose herself in the music.

The plane landed, and she found her suitcase with ease on her way out of the terminal. She caught a cab, telling the driver the name of a hotel just down the street from the apartment that she and her dad had lived in once upon a time. She made it into the hotel and set her suitcase in the corner, unzipping it and setting her other bag beside it. She knew exactly where the mall was from here, and she had some things to buy there.

So she walked to the mall. It was a few blocks away, but she could walk. And if she had too many things to carry on the way back to the hotel she could always catch another cab.

She stepped into the mall, smiling to herself as she made a beeline for the first clothing store she saw. It took all day to navigate the unfamiliar territory and find what she wanted, but eventually she got back to the hotel. She had a new pair of dark skinny jeans, a simple, long-sleeved black shirt, and a black leather jacket. She also had red lipstick and an entire bag of makeup. And just for the hell of it, she'd bought a dark grey tube-top that would show off the tops of her wings, because why not?

By that night, she was back to being the Angel that had left California a year before, minus the lingerie and the army boots.

She took herself out to dinner at Taco John's, enjoying her tacos almost as much as she enjoyed seeing the young man behind the counter as flustered as he was when she smiled at him. It had been a year since she'd tried to lie her way in or out of something, and just as long since she'd handled a gun. But she didn't think it would be difficult to slide right back into it.

When she had finished dinner and returned to the hotel, and sat down on her bed and grabbed the phone. She had eaten an early dinner, and it was almost six o'clock. She was pretty confident that Bodi would pick up when she called. So she took a deep breath and dialed the number.

It rang only once before he picked up.

"Yeah?" he said, his voice just the way she remembered it.

"Bodi," she said, wondering if he recognized her voice at all, "it's Angel."

For a moment, there was dead silence, and she wondered if he'd hung up or their call had been disconnected.

Then he spoke. "Angel?" he asked, the one word spoken quietly, almost reverently.

"Yeah," she said. "It's me. It's been a while."

She could hear him grinning when he said loudly, "Hell yeah it's been a while! How the hell did you get my number?"

Tyler smiled. "I remembered."

He guffawed on the other end of the line. "Nah," he said. "You fuckin' remembered even after all this time?"

"Yep," she said. "I tried, I really did. But I couldn't get you bastards out of my head."

He laughed. "Hey," he said after a moment, "It's damn good to hear your voice, girl, but what the hell you doin' callin' me anyways?"

Tyler took a deep breath. "I'm in California," she said.

It sounded like Bodi had been taking a gulp of something and had choked on it when she spoke. "What?" he coughed.

"I'm back," she said simply. "And I'd like to see you and the rest of the guys tomorrow, if you aren't busy."

"Fuck yeah!" he said. "Where you at?"

Tyler couldn't help but smile. She'd missed the sound of his voice and the way he spoke. "I'm in a hotel on the edge of town. But I want to see you tomorrow at eleven. At a coffee shop. It's only about ten minutes from the warehouse. South Street. You think you can find it?"

"Hell yeah I can," he said.

"And you'll bring the rest of the guys?" she asked hopefully. Then her voice dropped and she asked, "You're all still kicking ass and taking names, aren't you?"

She could tell Bodi was nodding. "Hell yeah we're all still around. And hell yeah we'll all be there."

Tyler smiled. "Okay," she said. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yeah, see ya," he said.

There was silence for a moment and then Tyler hung up. It was going to be great to see the guys again. It was going to be strange. And probably—definitely—painful, but it was going to be great. It took an extra hour for her to fall asleep. She was going to see her friends tomorrow.

Page | 3


	19. Fireworks

Tyler woke up and blinked at the ceiling above her in confusion. It took but a moment for everything to come back to her, and she glanced at the clock. It was nearly eight. She had plenty of time, so she got out of bed and showered, getting dressed and going downstairs for the breakfast that the hotel served.

When she'd eaten she went back to the hotel room and brushed her teeth and glanced at herself in the mirror. Today she was wearing makeup, but instead of lipstick she'd gone with clear lip gloss. She still had some time to kill, so she left the hotel and walked the few blocks to the gas station that used to be Joe's. She took a deep breath before she pushed the door open, closing her eyes and swallowing when the still-familiar bell rang to announce her entrance.

She looked at the man standing behind the counter, and he glanced up at her before returning his attention to a paper held in his hands. She sighed, missing Joe and wondering if the man behind the counter had even known the old man. Then she walked to the back of the store, straight to the candy aisle. She turned the corner and stopped, staring down at the floor where she had pushed Timmy to the ground and tried to shield him from the men. Shuddering, she tore her gaze away from the white linoleum and looked at the selection of gum. Smiling to herself, she snatched three packs of mint gum and walked back to the counter.

She paid and left the place with a stick of gum in her mouth, enjoying the familiar taste. Half of her wished that she'd gone into Joe's station and walked out just like this all those years before, because then he and Timmy would still be alive. But if she had, then she'd have never met Billy and she'd have never joined the gang, and quite a few of the bad people she and the boys had killed would still be free. Not to mention that the men who had been in charge of the trafficking place would still be in business and not behind bars.

She walked to the coffee shop, taking her time and wondering absently on her way if the woman who'd owned it four years before was still there. Tyler and her dad had gone for coffee a couple of times, and Tyler had gone alone enough that the lady who owned the place knew her. Would she recognize her when she walked in now?

She stepped inside and looked straight to the counter, where the very same lady was standing. Her name was Amy. She looked up and smiled at Tyler, but she didn't seem to recognize her. So Tyler went to the counter and ordered peppermint tea. She took her tea to a booth in the corner and sat down, settling back and sipping the hot liquid as she stared out the window.

There was a large department store across the street, and the coffee shop was on a corner, right at the end of the block. If Bodi and the guys followed her directions, there was no way they could miss it.

She smiled to herself, knowing how out of place and strange the guys were going to look in this part of town. She knew they'd all look like a dangerous bunch of men dressed in dark clothes. They would stand out among the middle and high class citizens who shopped and worked around here, and it wouldn't be in a good way. The people that passed the window and walked along the sidewalk across the street were all well-dressed and in a hurry to get somewhere. The cars driving by all looked either expensive or well cared for. There was going to be a sharp contrast between these people and the boys, and between their cars and the vehicles the guys would drive.

And sure enough, just at eleven o'clock she heard the still-familiar roar of their engines. They came to a screeching halt in front of the coffee place, and Tyler glanced over her shoulder towards the counter. Amy was standing there, wide-eyed, watching the cars that had just pulled up with an expression of cautious curiosity on her face.

Tyler couldn't keep the smile off her face when the guys piled out the car, stopping to look at the sign above the door and peering inside before they entered. Tyler glanced at Amy again. The poor woman looked rather alarmed; apparently she hadn't expected the cars' occupants to come inside of _her_ shop.

Tyler stood up when the guys walked in, and she was the only patron in the place, so they spotted her immediately. They all walked her way, and she just stood there, looking at each of them carefully as they approached. She was making sure they were all there and assessing whether any of them had been injured in the past year. But all of them were in one piece, and all of them seemed to be healthy enough.

Bodi was the first to reach her, and he pulled her into a hug as soon as he was close enough to grab her. He hugged her so hard he picked up a few inches off the ground. He was grinning from ear to ear when he set her back on her feet, and she was smiling too, but there were tears in her eyes. The other guys had all gathered around, and she hugged them all, smiling and wiping away the few tears that had managed to escape were sliding down her cheeks.

When the hugging was over, they all sat down, squeezing into the booth with her on the end, beside Bodi.

"How you been, Angel?" Heco asked, grinning at her.

She licked her lips and wiped away the last of her tears. "I've been okay," she said. "I'm great now, though."

They grinned at her. "What you been up to?" Spink asked after a moment.

She shrugged. "I spent a lot of time with my family. I just got back here yesterday."

Spink nodded.

"'D you miss us?" Jake wanted to know.

"Are you kidding?" she raised her eyebrows. Then she smiled sadly, "There wasn't a day that you guys didn't cross my mind."

Jake grinned.

And so it went, with the guys firing questions at her and with her answering them. It felt incredible to be completely honest for once. She didn't have to pretend that she'd been perfectly happy at home. She didn't have to lie and tell them that she hadn't thought of them often. She could talk about Billy, because they knew about him. She could cry, because they wouldn't judge her. They'd just do their best to make her feel better.

After a while, she asked, "What about Bones? Is he still alive?"

A strange silence settled over all of them, and for a moment she wondered if he was dead.

But then Baggy said, "Ol' Bones is still kickin."

Tyler nodded, but she didn't miss the way the guys were exchanging sideways glances.

"What?" she asked.

Spink had started shifting in his seat, as if there was something he wanted badly to say but couldn't.

She raised her eyebrows at him, noticing the way the other guys were looking pointedly at him and shaking their heads.

But Spink was looking only at her, and when she gave him a pleading look, that was all it took.

"Billy almost killed him," he blurted at last.

Tyler looked away. "Well, yeah," she said. "When Billy went he did a number on all of us . . ."

But Spink started shaking his head and said, "No, no. Not like that. See, Bones was pissed with Billy for letting you go and he kept fuckin' tellin' Billy how you were so much better of an employee than Billy ever was. But to Billy, you aint just another member of the gang. I mean, you are, but you're so much more. And Billy got so pissed at Bones that he almost killed him."

Tyler heard everything he said, but after she'd processed it all she thought back to his first couple of sentences. "Letting me go?" she repeated quietly.

Spink looked as if he was afraid he'd said too much. And he had.

Tyler looked at the faces gathered around her. "No," she said, "You said . . ." she paused, "you said he was . . . but Billy's . . ." she trailed off. Then she started again. "You said he was dead," she said.

The guys were silent.

"You lied." The words were out of her mouth before she'd really thought to say them. But she said it so quietly, it was obvious she wasn't accusing them. Instead, she was using her eyes and her expression to ask _why_. Why had they told her he was dead? Why had they let her go? Did Billy want her to go?

For the first time in a year, she started to question everything. She loved Billy Darley. That much she knew to be true. But had he loved her? Had he even actually cared about her, or had she fallen so deeply into her own fantasies that she started to believe he cared?

Panic and fear tightened around her heart, and the dull ache that had sprung up there as a spark now roared into a raging fire. A fire that seemed to be burning right into her core. It was hard to breathe. The ache was going to consume her. It was going to drag her under and burn her until there was no more.

But it all stopped when Bodi said quietly, "No."

"No?" she asked, turning to look at him.

She didn't know that the guys had started to panic. When she thought they'd lied, the light had left her eyes and her face, and she'd appeared to be either numb or in pain.

"We didn't tell you no lies," Bodi said. And then, taking his time, he told her what had really happened. He told her about the phone call and the hospital and their fear that they wouldn't find Billy alive. He told her that when they got there Billy was still breathing, they were going to call her. And he told her that Billy had ordered them not to. He told her everything, and she listened in silence, the color slowly coming back to her cheeks.

She could have taken it the wrong way. She could have thought that Billy didn't want the guys to call her because he wanted her out of his life. She could have thought that Billy did it all because he didn't care about her and he wanted someone new. But as Bodi spoke, the truth dawned on her. Billy had told them not to call because he wanted her to go, yes. But he'd done it because he wanted her out of there and away from the dangers of his life. He wanted her to go home to her family and be safe and happy. He'd done it because he _did_ care.

"He's alive," she breathed, shivers running down the length of her spine.

The guys were silent, watching her.

Eventually Spink spoke up. "He made us all swear not to fuckin' tell you," he said. "He'll kill us if he finds out." He looked kind of distressed, but Tyler wasn't too concerned.

"He knew I was meeting you," she said. It wasn't a question.

"Yeah," Baggy said.

"Where is he?" she asked.

The guys exchanged looks, but eventually Bodi cleared his throat. "Here, Angel," he said. "You're here. Where the hell else would he be?"

Tyler's mouth fell open in surprise, and she closed it with a _click_ of her teeth. "Here?"

Bodi nodded. He glanced out the window and said, "He said he wasn't gonna come, but we knew he would. He got here before we did. We saw his fucking car around back. He said he didn't wanna see you, but I seen him. He's been walkin' circles around the outside o' this place since right after we fuckin' got here.

He nodded towards the window, and Tyler looked. There, across the street, the receding figure of a man walking away could be seen. She saw only his back, but his swinging gate was still easily recognizable and made her breath catch in her throat.

He disappeared around the corner, and she stood up suddenly. But before she could take a step towards the door, Bodi had grabbed her arm. "He'll kill us if he find out we told you," he repeated their earlier words. "What you gonna tell him?"

Tyler forced herself to look away from the window and turned back to look at him. "I'll tell him I saw him through the window," she said. Then her voice and her expression became pleading and she said, "Please, let me go."

Bodi licked his lips and sighed deeply. Then he nodded. He released her.

She was at the door, just about to open it and leave when one of the guys called her back. They were all standing next to the booth now, and it was Jake who had spoken. "Hey!" he said, causing her to turn around and look at him. He grinned. "Good fuckin' luck!"

Tyler saw the way that Amy—who was still standing behind the counter—flinched when Jake swore, and she grinned. "Thanks," she called back to the guys, who were all watching her carefully.

She opened the door and stepped outside, looking to her left. The corner where Billy had disappeared was on her left, and if he was circling the coffee place then he'd come back around from her right. So she turned. He came around the corner of the place the moment she turned, and he was looking across the street as if he was afraid that looking into the coffee shop's window would make him seem to obvious.

And then she ran.

Billy was walking, hating himself for even being there. He had to be careful she wouldn't see him. Of course, she thought he was dead, and she was talking to the guys, so it wasn't like she'd be looking. But still. He came around the corner, averting his eyes from the coffee place. He couldn't stare into the window. What if he caught her eye? So he walked quickly, glancing inside for a split-second. But he didn't see her.

He was so surprised that he stopped and looked into the window, where the guys were standing around in a group, watching. They glanced at him and then at someone or something else on the street. Billy was confused. He started to turn his head.

If anyone on that street hadn't been too busy to pay attention to their surroundings, they would have seen something peculiar. Of course no one was watching the people around them, but had they been, they would have witnessed a strange sight; a young blond woman was running down the sidewalk, her hair flying out behind her as she sprinted. She was short and petite, and she had an air of innocence and youth about her. She was wearing blue jeans and a dark shirt, with lace-up boots. And she was running towards a man. He was tall and handsome, but he looked intimidating, dangerous, even. He was wearing dark clothes and a leather jacket, and he had dark tattoos that curled visibly up his neck and behind his ears. He looked dark and dangerous, a stark contrast to the blond girl, who looked friendly and innocent.

Billy had just turned his head to see what the guys were staring at when someone ran into him. He took a step back to absorb the impact, and he was surprised when whoever had run into him didn't back away, apologizing profusely. He generally intimidated people, and he terrified anyone who had the bad luck of bumping into him. But this person had been running, and this person wasn't letting go.

And then he froze. He didn't have to look down to know who had run into him. Two thin but strong arms were wrapped around him in a familiar way that he hadn't felt in a year. A face was pressed into his chest just the way he'd remembered and imagined all too often in the past months. Two small hands were at his shoulder blades, clutching at the black shirt he was wearing because they'd found their way between his shirt and his leather jacket, just as they always used to. Just the way he loved. After a moment, he dared to open his eyes and look down at her. All he could see was the head of messy blond curls resting against his chest, just as they always used to be.

And suddenly, he was no longer frozen. Unbidden, his wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against him. He leaned his head down, resting his chin on the top of her head. After a moment, he moved, pressing his nose into her hair and breathing in deeply. And there it was, still there; even hidden beneath the scent of shampoo and hairspray and perfume and whatever the hell else she was wearing, he could smell it. _Her_ smell.

In the moments when she'd hugged him and he hadn't hugged her back, Tyler had begun to worry. Maybe doing this the first time they saw each other after a year hadn't been such a good idea. But then he was holding her, hugging her, pulling her as close as he could and burying his face in her hair. And that was when she relaxed. She was in his arms. Her face was pressed against his chest, and his smell filled her nose. She had found home.

They stood there for quite a while, both of them losing time and neither of them caring because neither of them wanted to let go. Then Tyler loosened her grip just a bit, and Billy reacted by doing the same, giving her just enough room to lean back a bit so she could look up at his face.

She let go of him with one hand. He noticed how hesitant she was, as if she was afraid that she might lose her grip and just like that he'd be gone. She reached up, tracing the tattoos and letting her fingers move up his neck until her hand came to rest on his face, gently touching his cheek. "Billy," she breathed, her voice hardly even a whisper. She was staring at his face, searching it, memorizing it. There were tears in her eyes, and one of them escaped, starting to slide down her cheek.

He reached up, brushing it away with his thumb and saying nothing, just staring at her. After a moment he swallowed, licking his lips. "Tyler," he said. But it didn't come out the way he'd intended it to. He'd meant to sound firm and quiet, but the one word that left his lips was instead full of feeling. His voice wavered, nearly cracking with emotion.

Tyler took a deep breath, stroking his cheek lightly with her thumb. More tears were pooling in her eyes, and she swallowed hard before she spoke. "I love you," she said matter-of-factly.

Billy shook his head ever-so-slightly. "You don't," he said. He sounded awfully sure of himself, but his eyes were soft and watery, as if her words had gone deeper than he wanted to let them.

"I do," she said.

He frowned. "You shouldn't."

She smiled sadly, looking down at his chest for a moment before her eyes returned to his face. "Shouldn't," she repeated, looking broken. "Shouldn't love you like I shouldn't have stayed when Hume came for you? Like I shouldn't have joined a gang? Like I shouldn't have moved in with you?" She paused, swallowing the lump in her throat and ignoring the tears that had started to fall. "Billy," she said softly, "When have you ever seen me stay away from something I shouldn't do when it has to do with you?"

His frown faded, and his brow smoothed. He still didn't seem pleased with what she'd said. But his voice was oddly emotional when he said quietly, "You deserve better." Now there were tears pooling in _his_ eyes. He went on, "You deserve someone who can give you everything you want. Someone who can keep you safe. Someone who can make you happy. That's why I fuckin' wanted you go home in the first place."

She frowned at him, her lower lip trembling. "Billy," she said, "_You_ are everything that I want. _You_ keep me safe. _You_ make me happy."

He shook his head. "You should go home."

"Home," she repeated. Then she cupped his cheek with her hand, staring into his eyes. "What, you mean back with my family? I wasn't happy at home. Okay? It sucked. It fucking sucked. I was miserable. I don't belong there. I belong _here_."

He shook his head again. "You deserve better," he repeated.

She was desperate, afraid that he might walk away at any moment. She wasn't crying anymore. She felt like crying out of frustration and desperation, but the tears had stopped flowing. So she let go of him with her other hand, reaching up so that she was cupping his face in both hands. "I don't want _better_," she said fiercely. "I want _you_."

He just stared at her, seeming surprised. It was like he couldn't believe that she actually wanted him. And he couldn't. He stared down at her, thinking hard. God, she looked so sad. He stared into her eyes, and it was like he could see her breaking. And he was the reason she was falling apart. He was torn from his thoughts when she spoke.

"I love you," she said again, just as matter-of-factly as before. She looked like she was going to start crying again.

Billy looked at her, thinking hard. The last person he'd said "I love you" to was his mother. And she'd been on her deathbed. But staring down at Tyler, something new started to build in him. He wanted to keep her safe. He wanted her to be happy. He wanted her to get the love and the happiness and the life she deserved. But he also wanted her for himself. He'd been through so much hell in his life. Didn't he deserve something good, just this once? And he did love her. In that moment, staring into her eyes, he knew that it was true. He didn't want to. And he didn't want her to love him, either. If she didn't then she could have had a normal life. She could married a doctor or a lawyer and had two beautiful, perfect children and a big house and perfect life. But she didn't want the life. She must love him, if she'd left her family and her friends behind and come back after a year because she wanted this life. Who was he to deny her?

Maybe he was being incredibly selfish, or maybe he finally gave in and decided to let her have her way. But either way, he made his decision.

He took a deep breath, and the tears welled up in his eyes again. One of them slipped out and slid down his cheek as he spoke. "I love you." It was quiet, and he felt humiliated when the words came out full of emotion, but she heard.

She smiled small, looking up at him curiously. "Really?" she whispered.

He choked out a broken laugh and let go of her waist, grabbing her shoulders. Then he shook her gently and said loudly, "Yes. Goddammit, Tyler Williamson, I love you."

And then she started to cry again, and so did he. And she threw her arms around him and hugged him, and he wrapped his arms around her and held her close for a moment. And for the first time in his life, he didn't care if anyone saw him cry. He didn't care if anyone saw him standing there, holding a woman and crying over her as if he was a lovesick teenage boy. Let the world see. She was his. She loved him. And that was all that mattered.

A moment later they broke the hug and she wiped away her tears and then his. Then she threw her arms around his neck and stood on her tiptoes, and he put his arms around her and pulled her close. And for the first time in a year, they kissed.

Tyler had never believed in the idea of "fireworks" when two people kissed, but right then, Billy kissed her so hard and so passionately that she saw stars. And when she leaned back and looked at him, she was pretty sure she'd had the same effect on him.


	20. Right Now

He kisses still tasted like cigarettes and mint. Tyler smiled to herself as she turned away from Billy, who was just waking up. God, he was adorable when he was first coming back to the conscious world. It had never occurred to her before that a_dorable_ would ever be a word she used to describe Billy Darley, but in the mornings he was simply adorable. He didn't wake up very quickly, and he'd sit up halfway, leaning back against his pillows or the headboard and blinking drowsily at the room around them. And when he tried to talk he would mumble everything he said in a low, sleepy voice.

It had been a month since she'd come back to California and found out that Billy was alive. A month since she told him she loved him, finally admitting out loud what she had known all along. A month since he'd stared down at her, hesitating for only a moment before he said that he loved her, too.

She'd moved back into the apartment, finding that Billy hadn't ever gotten rid of any of her things. Everything she'd collected during her years as a member of the gang was waiting for her at home when she moved in again. She and Billy slid right back into their old life with ease. They picked up their old routine, but nowadays they were a bit more careful. One would never take on a job without the other, because they didn't want to repeat what had happened to Billy with the Hall.

Her parents thought she was taking classes at the local colleges. Writing classes. She wasn't taking classes, but she _was_ writing. Maybe in the next year or so she'd have a book to try and publish. But for now she was doing just fine helping the gang and dealing drugs.

Bones had been incredibly pleased to have her back, and as she was always pushing herself to work harder, he really did have his best employee back. She'd half expected him to tell her to fuck off when she drove up alone and asked if she could come back. But he'd looked up from his desk and grinned at her when she walked in. He'd told her that if she wanted back in, she had the job. Then he'd grinned at her before she left and said, "Don't disappoint me, Angel."

She smiled back and said, "Of course not," before she stepped out the door.

Now she was happy, now she had the gang and Billy for family, and now she had a job and a life of her own. Now she was home.

She was content with where she was and what she had in life, but she would have been even happier if she'd known what the future held; quite a few big things were coming.

Three months after she moved back into the apartment, she would admit to Billy that she had his name tattooed on her wings. Then she would tell him how to find the name, and when he found it he would be so taken aback and impressed that she'd _inked her skin_ with _his name_ that he would drunkenly get down on one knee and propose. The next morning when they woke up, they would stare up at the ceiling for a few moments in silence, neither of them looking at the other. After a while, Billy would lick his lips and ask, "How about it, then?"

"How about what?" she'd ask. She'd know what he meant, but she'd want to hear him say it.

"What I asked you last–" he would stop mid-sentence and say, "You know what? Fuck it. You gonna marry me or not?"

And Tyler would smile and turn to look at him, and they'd finally make eye-contact for the first time that morning. "Yes," she'd say, and then they'd kiss.

Three months after he asked and she said yes, they'd find enough time to get away from Bones' jobs and go to Vegas for a short wedding/honeymoon. The wedding would take no less than fifteen minutes, with them signing the papers and kissing once in front of the judge. And just like that, they'd be Mr. and Mrs. Darley.

They'd get back home and settle back into regular life, now as a married couple. Tyler would refuse to tell her parents that she was married, and when Billy teased her and asked if she thought she didn't want to disappoint her parents, she'd say, "No. I'm just afraid my dad'll hear about it and come down here to kill you."

He'd shrug and say, "Not the first time he's made the kind of fuckin' threat."

And they'd laugh.

Two years after they got married and when Tyler was twenty, she would publish her first book. A year later she would publish a sequel, and two years after that she'd publish the third, completing the trilogy. After they were a complete set, her books would become quite popular. But she'd spend hardly any time in the public eye or doing interviews or book signings. She would be known as a strange, reclusive author who lived someplace secret and spent her life writing and living alone. She would use a pen name, and the back of her book would say that she lived alone somewhere in California.

Her parents would be proud of their daughter, never knowing that she was married and a member of a gang, or that she was a drug dealer.

Three years after she'd come back to California and almost seven years after she'd first been kidnapped and met Billy, Tyler would go back home to visit her parents. She and Billy would consider taking him with her, and in the end they would decide that he would go, pretending to be her boyfriend, to see what her parents thought of him.

Suzanne would dislike him from the moment she met him, thinking he was nothing but trouble and not liking the way her sons seemed to idolize and look up to him. But Jeff would like the kid; he was funny, and even though he looked dark and intimidating at first, he was actually pretty cool. And as far as any of them would be able to tell, Billy was head-over-heels for Tyler; he always wanted to give her everything she wanted, and he was actually very sweet and gentlemanly around her.

Tyler would eventually tell her dad that she and Billy had been married for a couple of years, and he would seem surprised, but not unhappy. He would congratulate them and warn them that they shouldn't say anything to her mom, because he'd break the news to her after they left. And he would. And three days after they got back to the apartment, her mom would call and rant and rave, screaming into the phone. Tyler would eventually get bored of holding the phone, so she and Billy would settle down on the couch together and set the phone on the coffee table in front of them, where they could watch and listen to her mother yell.

Suzanne Williamson would not happy with her daughter's choices, and she wouldn't even know about half the things Tyler was doing with her life.

But Tyler wouldn't care. She had Billy. She had her own life. She had the gang, who loved her even more fiercely than her own brothers. She had a paying job. She had three published books. And she was home.

But that was all in the future. It was September fifteenth, and Tyler had just crawled out of bed to get dressed and make breakfast. They weren't married, her parents didn't know that she had a boyfriend, and it had only been a little while since she came back. She left Billy to wake up and walked to the kitchen, pouring him a cup of coffee and starting the meal. She turned around a few minutes later when he shuffled in and she walked up, wrapping her arms around him and kissing him.

"Morning," she said.

He sniffed. "Morning," he mumbled, still barely half-awake.

Tyler smiled. She didn't need to worry about the future. She just wanted to spend each and every moment enjoying what was happening _right now_.

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